Starting out young

In more ways than one. From today's Sarasota Herald-Tribune

PUNTA GORDA -- While investigating a suspicious death in July, police spotted the image of a young naked girl on a Punta Gorda resident's computer desktop.

The explicit picture spurred a month-long investigation that ended Wednesday morning with the arrest of a 19-year-old Edison College student.

John Patrick Johnson was charged with 50 counts of possession of child pornography. On his computer, Johnson had at least 50 separate movies and pictures showing toddlers to teens involved in sexual acts, said Punta Gorda police Capt. Jason Ciaschini.

Each count is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

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When detectives found the first pornographic picture -- a girl younger than 10 -- they were executing a search warrant for Johnson's home in the 7000 block of North Seagrape Road, according to an arrest report. Johnson's father, also named John Johnson, had died July 25 at 50. An autopsy later determined his death was accidental and caused by alcohol poisoning, Ciaschini said.

While awaiting autopsy reports, police got a second search warrant and seized the younger Johnson's computer, the report states.

Johnson told officers that he owned the computer and was the only person who used it, according to the report. He said he received the pornographic image on his desktop by e-mail and used it to set up pedophiles on the Internet.

Johnson "denied that there were any other items of the like on the computer," the report states.

But Sgt. Gary Ellsworth, with the sheriff's Computer Forensics Unit, found many comparable images on the computer's hard disk drive, according to the report. Each file had a name including phrases, such as "Illegal Preteen -- Young Kiddy Childs-NOBULL" and "Kiddy Sex -- Alicia_NOBULL_shes about 7 dk hair and eyes."

Johnson remained in the county jail Wednesday evening with bail set at $125,000. According to the arrest report, Johnson's family members told police that he might recently have inherited as much $2 million and may be considering moving out of state.

Porn involving toddlers, what kind of sick minds are on this planet.

19 years old? If true, its good Johnson was caught before a chance to act out his urges. Maybe I'm reading too much into this article, but it sounds like the father had an alcohol problem. That often leads to children getting abused. Do you see this young man with a ready made defense already?

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