Friday, May 29, 2009

20 arrested, 12,000 images found in child pornography round-up

CLERMONT -- An assistant manager at the Clermont Walmart store was the 20th person arrested in a wide-sweeping child pornography round-up by Lake County Sheriff's Office's Cyber Crimes Unit.

Jonathan Williamson was arrested at the store late Thursday and charged with 100 counts of possession of child porn.

His arrest was just the latest in a five-month investigation that yielded 20 arrests and 10 more arrest warrants, the Lake County Sheriff's Office said Thursday.

Sheriff's spokesman Cpl. James Vachon said the Cyber Crimes detectives worked with the Internet Crimes Against Children task forces in several states, including Wisconsin, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, California and Georgia to make the arrests. All the charges stemmed from Lake County, although agencies from other counties were involved, Vachon said.

Detectives went online in an undercover capacity and communicated with numerous individuals.

Arrests were made in Leesburg, Lady Lake, Eustis, Mount Dora, Clermont and Mascotte. Those arrested included students, a Walt Disney World employee and a business owner. Most were rounded-up at home, but a few were arrested at work, including one man at Silver Springs Citrus, said Vachon in an e-mail.

Vachon said as a result of the investigation, 23 search warrants were obtained and more than 12,000 images of child pornography were seized from computers. In one case, more than 9,000 images were found on a computer. There were an additional 10 arrest warrants for out-of-state individuals.

The suspects were taken to the Lake County jail and were being held on various bails.

Arrested were:

-- Xavier David Eccleston, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Jason Hussey, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Travis Seaman, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Timothy Williams, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Nolon Scott Henderson, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Nicholas Whitton, Possession and Distribution of Child Pornography.

-- James Tatarczuk, Certain Uses of Computer Services Prohibited, Transmission of Harmful Material to a Minor by Electronic Equipment.

-- Michael Zettelmaier, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Richard Parascandola, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- James Martnick II, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Carl Westberg, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Adrijk Duran, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Gary Shank, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Kenneth Gravel, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- David Bowman, Distribution of Child Pornography.

-- James Matthews Jr., Certain Uses of Computer Services Prohibited, Transmission of Harmful Material to a Minor by Electronic Equipment.

-- David Hardy, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Norberto Mendez, Possession of Child Pornography.

-- Larry Van Bates, Certain Uses of Computer Services Prohibited, Transmission of Harmful Material to a Minor by Electronic Equipment.

Tatarczuk, Westberg, Matthews and Van Bates were out-of-state arrests.