Found Phone Leads To Child Porn Charges
FT. LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – A lost cell phone on a public transit bus landed a Deerfield Beach man behind bars charged with possession of child pornography.
Last August, someone turned in a black and blue Samsung cell phone To the Broward Sheriff's Office which they said they found on a county bus seat in Pompano Beach. The person said when they looked through the phone's contents they found a number of images of child pornography.
The phone was turned over to the Detective Jennifer Montgomery, a member of the Internet Crimes Against Child Task Force. A forensic check of the phone's contents found 463 save images in the Media/Images Download Folder. A majority of the images, according to the forensic report, depicted nude girls between the ages of three and 12 displaying their genitals or performing sex acts.
The forensic examination found that the images were obtained through visiting child pornography websites using the phone's web browser. The images were downloaded between June 27 and July 31st.
The exam also came up with the name of the phone's owner, 53-year old Philip Wilmoth.
On September 27th, Det. Montgomery contacted the person listed as the subscriber at T-Mobile. The woman said she pays for the cell phone service of Wilmoth who lives in Deerfield Beach. After the phone found was described to her, she said it Wilmoth's phone and he lost it one month after she bought it for him.
On Wednesday, detectives question Wilmoth in his home. He reportedly admitted that the phone was his and he had downloaded the images. Wilmoth said he has looked at child pornography for years and did it out of "boredom," according to his arrest affidavit. He also showed detectives his new phone, which according to the sheriff's office, had 23 images of child pornography on it.
Wilmoth was arrested and charged with 23 counts of possession of child pornography.
