Former Volunteer Hockey Coach At South Florida Ice Rink Faces Child Porn Charges

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Broward Sheriff's Office detectives have arrested a former volunteer hockey coach on child porn charges.

The suspect did volunteer work for an ice hockey rink until early last year and came in contact with youngsters from the St. Thomas Aquinas High School hockey club.

The Broward Sheriff's Office said Nicholas Martin Gullman, 32, from Lauderhill, was arrested Wednesday and is facing 20 charges in total.

Nineteen counts of child pornography and one count of using a computer to compile child pornography.

In addition to finding multiple videos and images of children engaging in various sex acts,

BSO spokeswoman, Officer Joy Oglesby, told CBS4's Peter D'Oench, "The images show mostly young boys between 10 and 14 years old and aging in sex acts and exposing their genitals and they were also seen in the nude or in a provocative manner."

BSO says it found recorded images of a locker room showing high school boys in various stages of undress.

"Based on what our detectives discovered, we believe they may be St. Thomas Aquinas High school students," said Oglesby.

Police said they impounded several external storage drives, along with two covert cameras designed to look like USB plugs from Gullman's bedroom.

BSO says their investigation led to Gullman in January when an Internet Service Provider reported one of its users had violated its terms of service after child porn had been uploaded to their servers.

After further investigation, detectives were able to track down Gullman at his home address.

"This is very concerning and disturbing," said Oglesby. "That person is in the community and has had contact with local children. We are hoping that anyone who knows about the defendant or recognizes him as having problems with children and has seen him at hockey rinks will come forward and contact us. We believe there may be other victims."

"As a parent you have to remain vigilant and talk to your children and let them know that you want to hear what is going on," added Oglesby.

Gullman is currently in custody at Broward's main jail.

He told BSO that he denied uploading child pornography or seeing images of it.

D'Oench stopped at Gullman's home where a family member gave him the card of a Fort Lauderdale attorney who they had hired. The family member did not want to say anything.

Brian Silber, the attorney for Gullman, told CBS4 in a written statement, "In America, allegations are NOT convictions. Mr. Gullman will be entering a plea of NOT GUILTY on all counts."

Mary Ross-Agosta, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Miami, stressed that Gullman did volunteer work for the ice hockey rink and did not work directly as a volunteer for St. Thomas Aquinas High School.

She said he was "not affiliated" with the school.