ST. CLOUD, Fla. — A St. Cloud man was arrested Wednesday, accused of posing as a teenager on social media to convince actual children to share explicit images and videos of themselves with him.
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59-year-old Charles Maitski was booked into the Osceola County jail Wednesday on 20 separate charges, including multiple counts each of possessing child sexual abuse material and directing or promoting a sexual performance by a child.
According to a St. Cloud Police Department arrest report, the investigation into Maitski began back in June with a cyber tip from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force regarding a then-unknown person using the Discord social media platform to exchange and view child sexual abuse materials.
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The suspect’s username and associated email address were linked to an IP address that led investigators directly to Matski’s home on Cabo Rojo Drive in St. Cloud.
Investigators say a search warrant executed on the Discord account revealed multiple chats during which Maitski sent the image listed in the cyber tip to another user, as well as several other images showing young boys and girls posing nude and engaging in sexual activities.
In chats dated between May and June of this year, investigators say Maitski engaged in chats with a 14-year-old girl during which he convinced her to send him multiple videos and images of herself posing nude and committing sex acts on herself.
According to police, when questioned directly, the victim said she met “Chuck” on the social media application TikTok and was convinced he was a 14 or 15-year-old boy.
The report says investigators executed a search warrant at Maitland’s home on Aug. 14, but he wasn’t there, having traveled to Pennsylvania.
Agents with the Department of Homeland Security conducted an interview with him there, during which he verified the Discord account and associated email address belonged to him but claimed he only used them to look at adult pornography and refused to allow the agents to preview the cell phones and laptop computer he had with him.
According to the report, days later, detectives met Maitski at Orlando Health St. Cloud hospital, where he worked, after a judge approved a search warrant for a forensic exam of any cellular devices he had with him upon making contact. That same day, that judge also approved a search warrant for a forensic exam of his laptop.
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According to the report, the exam revealed a link to a cloud server containing two additional videos depicting sexual performances by young children.
Investigators say the exam also appears to show attempts Maitski made to delete other videos and images of child sexual abuse material just after agents contacted him in Pennsylvania, including the one that triggered the initial cyber tip.
The exam also revealed an Instagram account showing a chat history with a user who identified herself as a 14-year-old girl. Investigators say the chat eventually became sexual in nature as Maitski convinced the girl to take explicit pictures and videos of her friends and send them to him.
In turn, investigators say Maitski sent back explicit photos of a young boy and what appeared to be explicit images of Maitski with his wife.
Investigators say they found multiple other chats involving Maitski’s Instagram account with users who say they’re underage girls and send him explicit images of themselves. According to the report, the username associated with Maitski often shifts the conversation to sexual content, at which point most stop replying to him.
Investigators note that in both the Discord and Instagram chats, Maitski identified himself as “Chuck” and claimed to be between 14 and 15 years old. He would also often use the same images of a young boy as his own.
Investigators ultimately determined Maitski habitually posed as a teenage boy on his social media accounts and engaged in chats with girls he knew to be or thought were underage in order to “solicit, direct, promote and receive” images and videos of them being exploited, and would at times share those with other people.
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Maitski was finally arrested on a warrant Wednesday as he left work at Orlando Health St. Cloud Hospital.
According to court records, if released on bond, he’ll be ordered to have no contact with minors, no access to the internet or social media, and no use of computers at all.
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