Sarasota man arrested on 40 child porn charges after content found on Tumblr, Google
A 33-year-old Sarasota man is facing dozens of charges after investigators say he shared photos and videos depicting child sexual abuse.
Joshua Michael Bright was arrested Wednesday and charged with 40 counts of possession of child sexual abuse material and one count of transmission of child sexual abuse material by electronic device. He is being held without bond at the Sarasota County jail.
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office first began to investigate Bright in December after receiving a cyber tip through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The social media website Tumblr had reported an image of suspected child pornography had been uploaded to their server. Tumblr banned adult content in 2018 after Apple removed the app from its store because child porn was discovered despite technology designed to filter it out.
In January, the sheriff’s office received six more cyber tips from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children after Google reported 30 video suspected of being child pornography had been uploaded to their servers.
Detectives were able to track the IP address used to upload the files and identified Bright as a suspect. Google and Tumblr each responded to search warrants, giving detectives access to Bright’s accounts where they found 42 more video or images depicted child sexual abuse of girls between the ages of 5 and 16.
Charges against Bright were elevated to first-degree felonies because the sexual abuse depicted a 5-year-old child and sexual bestiality.
When detectives arrived to Bright’s home in the 15700 block of Wilson Road in Sarasota with a search warrant, he was not home. But when he was informed that detectives were at his home — he throw his cellphone in a pond — which he later admitted was an effort to destroy the phone.
During an interview with detectives, Bright admitted that the Tumblr and Google accounts were his and that he looked at the child pornography for mental and sexual gratification.
Detectives reported that he also admitted to send some of the video or images to at least three other users and discussing “raping littles” with at least one other user.
