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.<\/p>\n
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”.<\/p>\n
One of the organization’s functions is to report files that enter their server that depict the sexual exploitation of children.<\/p>\n
The NCMEC sent a tip to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement after finding files uploaded to a Microsoft OneDrive cloud service account.<\/p>\n
According to information received from the NCMEC, four files were found uploaded to the OneDrive account on June 28.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Information obtained from the subpoena led investigators to\u00a056-year-old William Cline’s apartment on Ryan Drive in Leesburg.<\/p>\n
Officers then obtained a search warrant on September 13 and executed the search of Cline’s home on September 14.<\/p>\n
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”.<\/p>\n
Cline told officers that some of the children in the photos were nude and some were “dressed sexy”.<\/p>\n
According to the arrest report, during the search, investigators found five files located on Cline’s computer that contained images of sexually exploited children.<\/p>\n
Cline was subsequently arrested and charged with five counts of possession of child pornography.<\/p>\n
He was transported to the Lake County Jail where he was released several hours later after posting a $25,000 bond.