A Florida man was slapped with 15 felony charges after an investigation found he was allegedly in possession of sexual images and videos of children — some as young as 2 years old, according to police.
Erick Paniagua, 29, was arrested by the Miami-Dade County Police Department at his Richmond West home on Wednesday after authorities found the accused creep downloaded and uploaded obscene files containing the sexual abuse of boys and girls ages 2 to 12, the Miami Herald reported.
Police, along with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, launched its investigation in August after receiving a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) indicating Paniagua was using the online messaging app Kik to store the files, according to the arrest report.
Authorities said Kik reported the account to NCMEC.
Paniagua was identified as the owner of the Kik account, according to the report, and police later discovered that he also used Skiff, an end-to-end encrypted email service, to upload about 100 files to his account registered under the username Richardsman12.
Police executed a search warrant at the residential address linked to the IP service associated with the account — Paniagua’s home — where he confessed to the charges after being read his rights, the report states.
Paniagua’s electronic devices were seized and are currently being examined for further evidence, the Herald reported.
Paniagua was charged with 15 counts of Possession of an Obscene Sexual Performance by a Child and is currently being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $30,000 bond, court records show.
