Baseball coach accused of sharing hundreds of images, messages involving child porn on Twitter

ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orlando area baseball coach was arrested last week after Orlando police said an 11-month investigation revealed that he’d used Twitter to share hundreds of images and messages involving child porn.

Officers said Timothy Shea, 45, was arrested June 22 on 10 counts of possession of material depicting sexual performance by a child and unlawful use of a two-way communications device.

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Police said Shea coaches through the Tribe Baseball Club, a traveling team for teens. But the organization said Shea hasn’t been affiliated with the program since February and that the families of the teens on the team have been notified of Shea’s arrest.

The investigation into Shea started in May 2020 after police said a Cybertip from Twitter noted that Shea’s home IP address had generated 3,000 pages of explicit direct messages, 2,000 tweets with explicit images and one upload of an image showing sexual performance by a child.

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Shea no longer lives at the Orlando address that was provided by police. The homeowner’s son said Shea was renting and asked to move out months ago before they knew he was being investigated for having child porn.

“He was weird, he was really weird,” JD Gaines said.

When investigators searched his home, officers said they found multiple images of child pornography in Shea’s Dropbox account and 3,400 chat messages on his phone discussing ways to sexually abuse and have sex with children.

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Detective Jennifer Wing said boys are subjects of some of the content Shea shared, but that it predominately features girls.

Investigators said they also found hundreds of clear bags in his home containing individually wrapped, previously worn underwear. Police said he’d request the underwear in online chats and had them mailed to his P.O. Box.

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Police said Shea already bonded out of jail.

Detectives said they believe Shea had interactions with teens in Central Florida, and are asking for families to contact the Special Victims Unit at 407-246-2970 if they believe their children or teens may be victims.

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Stay tuned to Channel 9 Eyewitness News for updates.