Florida Keys child porn investigation expands with second arrest in Wisconsin

Federal agents investigating a child pornography case originating from an online chat last year between an undercover agent and a man living with his wife and multiple children on a sailboat moored in a Florida Keys harbor caught up with their suspect in Wisconsin last month.

This week, the man’s wife has also been arrested in Wisconsin on a child abuse warrant from Monroe County sheriff’s detectives.

When federal agents arrested Eric Edward Cadogan in a La Crosse, Wisconsin, house, it became clear the case went beyond the atrociousness of most child porn cases in which sexual images of innocent children are traded in shadowy chat rooms among people with a predilection for pedophilia, according to court documents.

Cadogan, 39, agents say, was in some of the images — or at least someone was who was wearing the exact black bracelet with a silver emblem he owns and which agents found in his bedroom when they raided the Wisconsin home on Dec. 7, according to the criminal complaint filed against him.

Cadogan lived on the sailboat with his wife and seven children ranging in age from five to 15 years old until June, according to the FBI complaint. His Facebook page shows photos of the family living in the Keys on the sailboat in 2019.

When the FBI and local police raided Cadogan’s Wisconsin house last month, a woman in the home, only identified by the FBI as “K.C.,” told agents Cadogan “forced” her to have intercourse with an 8-year-old boy in 2020. K.C. is Kia Cadogan, Eric Cadogan’s 34-year-old wife, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, which began investigating her in December after the FBI arrested her husband.

“She’s now now trying to portray herself as the victim for being forced to do that to the 8-year-old,” Monroe Sheriff Rick Ramsay said.

At the time the boy was allegedly abused, the family was living on their boat in Marathon’s Boot Key Harbor. They moved to Wisconsin in June, according to the FBI complaint.

“She’s just as guilty in this case,” Ramsay said.

Police in Wisconsin arrested Kia Cadogan Tuesday on a Monroe County warrant. She is expected to extradited to the Keys to face charges of aggravated child abuse and child sexual battery, sheriff’s office spokesman Adam Linhardt said.

A federal judge Wednesday ordered Eric Cadogan held until trial, determining him a flight risk and a danger to the community, according to court documents. He is being held at the Federal Detention Center in Miami. A grand jury indicted him on a charge of distribution of child pornography Dec. 21. He faces 20 years in prison if convicted.

The investigation begins

The sprawling investigation began in May when the undercover agent went on the social media site Kik and began messaging with the administrator of a chatroom titled, “Family Loving,” ” according to the FBI complaint.

The administrator, who the FBI says is Eric Cadogan, operated under the handle, “livelife4fun69,” the complaint states.

In the chatroom, Cadogan announced he would send “30 videos of your preferred style to whomever that can send 30 bucks to a designated cash app!”

When the agent engaged in an direct online conversation with Cadogan, Cadogan responded he “had 100 of videos n pictures,” and that he needed money and would sell as many as the agent wanted, according to the complaint.

On July 1, the agent sent a direct message to Cadogan asking for images and videos. Cadogan, according to the complaint, responded, “Absolutely. A dollar per 5 minute video or less.” Cadogan directed the agent to a cash app account under the name “$EricCadogan,” telling the agent the person registered to the account “was a friend,” the complaint states.

Cadogan then sent the agent a file that contained one image and three videos “depicting child pornography,” the complaint states.

To set up the cash app account, Cadogan used his address at the Marathon marina, according to the FBI.

Law enforcement went to the marina and learned that he moved in June, according to the complaint.

They leave the Keys

The investigation went on to span two more states, with local police departments in Wildwood, New Jersey, and La Crosse, Wisconsin, questioning Cadogan.

Wildwood detectives reached Cadogan in July, but by that time he had moved to Wisconsin, according to the FBI.

Police in Wisconsin obtained the cell phone of another person that contained text messages to and from Cadogan, including ones “referencing nude images and videos of minors,” the complaint states.

It was on that phone where investigators found a video of a man wearing the black bracelet raping a child, according to the FBI.

A family member told agents in early December that the bracelet belonged to Cadogan. Then on Dec. 7, federal agents searching his Wisconsin home “located a similar bracelet in Cadogan’s bedroom,” the complaint states.

Cadogan was arrested the next day by both the FBI that day and by the La Crosse County Sheriff’s Department because, when they raided the home, a woman, who it is now revealed to be Kia Cadogan, had a broken hand, and she told police it was her husband who harmed her.

‘Equally a co-conspirator’

. Ramsay, the Florida Keys sheriff, said if she truly was the victim of her husband, and he forced her to molest a child, she had many opportunities to go to his deputies.

“Our job is to protect people. If people come forward, they get protected,” Ramsay said. “She was equally a co-conspirator.”