- April 25, 2024
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John Gardner, 71, and two teenage males were arrested Aug. 20 on charges of Possession of Child Pornography.
The Flagler County Sheriff's Office was notified of the subjects’ online activity from a CyberTip that came from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which alerts law enforcement agencies to cases of sexual exploitation of children on the internet.
During the investigation, detectives served search warrants on the subjects’ homes, and several electronics and media storage devices were seized. More than 15 terabytes of data were analyzed to recover the pornographic images of children.
Arrest warrants were obtained after three separate and lengthy investigations were conducted by Detective Dennis Lashbrook of the Cyber Crimes Unit in partnership with the North Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The first case was started in May 2020.
“Detective Lashbrook of our Cyber Crimes Unit did a great job in building these strong cases,” Sheriff Rick Staly said. “This type of disgusting behavior of exploiting children on the internet will not be tolerated in our community and is exactly why I started our Cyber Crimes/ICAC Unit. This is also why parents need to monitor their children’s electronic devices and social media accounts and be the sheriff in their homes. I’d like to thank the Cyber Crimes Unit detectives for their great investigative work and the North Florida ICAC Task Force for their assistance with these cases.”
All three subjects were arrested and transported to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility. Gardner is being charged with 50 counts of Possession of a Controlled View of Sexual Performance by a Child and is being held on a $750,000 bond.
The two teens are being charged with three and six counts, respectively, of Possession of a Controlled View of Sexual Performance by a Child. The two teenagers were processed at the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility and then the Department of Juvenile Justice ordered them released to the custody of their parents while awaiting trial.
