Detectives arrested a 36-year-old East Naples man Tuesday and charged him with 75 counts of possession of child pornography.Robert Chester Hinote, 394 Leawood Circle, was arrested and booked into the Collier County jail.
In February detectives with the Collier County Sheriff’s Office’s Major Crimes Bureau Exploitation Unit began an undercover investigation in an attempt to identify persons using online file-sharing networks on the Internet to download and share child pornography, according to arrest reports.
Through the investigation detectives tracked child pornography files that were shared over the Internet to an Internet Protocol, or IP, to a desktop computer located on Leawood Circle. On Tuesday, detectives executed a search warrant at the residence, but a preliminary search of the computer did not turn up any files indicative of child pornography, reports said.
Upon further investigation, detectives discovered that the wireless router showed the name ROBDESKTOP with a MAC IP address as a computer that was currently using the Internet service at the residence.
The homeowner told deputies that her neighbor Hinote had approached her husband in February about sharing the couple’s Internet service if they agreed to split the cost of a wireless router. Her husband agreed to do so, reports said.
Detectives then went to Hinote’s residence and he gave them permission to search the computer. A preliminary forensic review of the computer turned up 75 video and picture files showing boys and girls engaged in sex acts with adults and alone. The children ranged in age from 4 to 12, reports said.
Many of the picture files showed children who appeared to be around 4 years old engaged in sex acts with an adult male, reports said.
Detectives executed a search warrant at the residence and retrieved additional computers, which are being forensically analyzed, reports said.
An investigation continues.
