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Plant City man charged with having child pornography

By MICHAEL A. MOHAMMED
Published April 6, 2007

PLANT CITY - A Plant City man faces 78 counts of possession of child pornography after his Internet service provider alerted a national children's watchdog center, authorities say.

In December, America Online told the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Robert J. Carter, 44, had used its service to download child pornography, said Hillsborough County sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter.

The center notified Hillsborough sheriff's deputies, who obtained a search warrant.

Detectives went to Robert Carter's residence at 4602 Holloway Road on Jan. 19. They seized his computer and several recordable CDs hidden in his bedroom dresser, and they turned them over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for analysis.

FDLE investigators found 78 pornographic images of underage children that Carter had downloaded from the Internet, most of which he had recorded to the CDs. Some had been deleted but were recovered from the computer's hard drive, according to his arrest affidavit.

The pictures, which were mixed with photos of Carter and his family, depicted nude preadolescent children, and children younger than 18 engaged in sexual acts, according to the arrest report.

Deputies arrested Carter early Thursday. He is being held at the Orient Road Jail, with bail set at $156,000.

Michael A. Mohammed can be reached at mmohammed@ sptimes.com or 813 226-3404.

[Last modified April 6, 2007, 00:33:47]