LEESBURG, Fla. — A Leesburg man was arrested Friday morning according to police after an investigation led detectives to numerous files depicting sexual exploitation of children.
According to an arrest report, investigators in the Cyber Crimes Task Force of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), an organization that acts as a “clearing house for all internet service providers and email service providers”.
One of the organization’s functions is to report files that enter their server that depict the sexual exploitation of children.
The NCMEC sent a tip to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement after finding files uploaded to a Microsoft OneDrive cloud service account.
According to information received from the NCMEC, four files were found uploaded to the OneDrive account on June 28.
After seeing the files and confirming they did contain explicit images of children, investigators obtained a subpeona to get the physical address associated with the IP address the photos were uploaded from.
Information obtained from the subpoena led investigators to 56-year-old William Cline’s apartment on Ryan Drive in Leesburg.
Officers then obtained a search warrant on September 13 and executed the search of Cline’s home on September 14.
During the search, Cline admitted to viewing images of underage children being sexually exploited and that he had “approximately 100 images of children on his computer”.
Cline told officers that some of the children in the photos were nude and some were “dressed sexy”.
According to the arrest report, during the search, investigators found five files located on Cline’s computer that contained images of sexually exploited children.
Cline was subsequently arrested and charged with five counts of possession of child pornography.
He was transported to the Lake County Jail where he was released several hours later after posting a $25,000 bond.
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