After nearly a year of investigation following a parole violation arrest in Saskatchewan, Canada, investigators made a Christmas Eve child porn arrest in Brevard County as the suspect disembarked from a Carnival cruise ship.
According to a federal arrest report, the child porn investigation started on March 22, 2016, when a man was arrested in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, on a probation violation.
The suspect, who was not identified, was found to have been sharing child pornography with dozens of people using a mobile app on his iPhone, investigations said.
In June 2016, Canadian authorities ordered the application’s makers to release information on 78 users who had shared child porn with the man.
On Saturday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection identified Michael Paige Palmer, 40, as one of the 78 users and informed customs officials in Port Canaveral to inspect his digital devices after he disembarked from a Carnival cruise.
During the inspection, Palmer, a resident of Virginia, was found to have a USB drive containing child porn, which he had downloaded from the mobile application three or four days before his cruise, the arrest report said.
Palmer told investigators that he had been downloading child porn starting in 2012, the report said.
“He was intrigued and addicted for the first few months, but later became disgusted with the images and stopped downloading and viewing the images,” the report said, noting that Palmer admitted he never deleted the files.
Palmer told investigators that several years later he started to download the child porn again, “but claimed that he later began reporting the (app) chat groups where the child pornography was being distributed,” the arrest report said.
Palmer did not report the child pornography to law enforcement but instead alerted administrators of the mobile application, investigators said.
Palmer was charged with a federal count of possession of child pornography.
Cox Media Group
