PALM BAY, Fla. — Palm Bay police say they’ve arrested an “evil predator” with a history of committing crimes involving children.
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26-year-old Gunnar Beswick was arrested just last week on multiple counts of being in possession of child pornography.
According to police, the investigation into Beswick’s activity began back in November when The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received two CyberTipline reports of material depicting the sexual abuse of children being shared on two separate social media platforms.
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Investigators traced the activity to an IP address at a home in Palm Bay. They checked the criminal histories of the home’s occupants and found Beswick had been arrested in 2020 during an undercover operation by the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office targeting online predators who were seeking illegal sexual activity with children.
During a search of the home, detectives seized several electronic devices from the room Beswick used, including a phone and a laptop computer. They ultimately found dozens of image files showing children engaged in sexual acts, including the original image that was submitted with the NCMEC CyberTip.
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Beswick was arrested and charged with 11 counts of possession of child pornography with an enhancement from a third-degree felony to a second-degree felony. He was booked into the Brevard County jail where he remains on $275,000 bond.
According to the Palm Bay Police Department, Beswick was initially charged with traveling to meet a minor and unlawful use of a computer to solicit a child after his arrest in 2020, but those charges were later reduced to a single count of unlawful use of a two-way communication device to commit a felony.
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Beswick was placed on probation with GPS monitoring and sex offender conditions, but wasn’t required to register as a sex offender, which would have included a restriction on using the internet.
“This multi-agency effort utilize every means necessary to investigate these crimes until it culminated with the arrest of this evil predator,” Palm Bay Police Chief Mario Augello said. “Our department will not tolerate these predators preying on the innocent children in our city. We will use any and all means at our disposal to put these predators in jail.”
The Palm Bay Police Department’s Special Victims Unit conducted their investigation as part of the North Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce.
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