Manatee County firefighter arrested for child sexual abuse images, Sarasota police say
A Manatee County firefighter has been accused of possessing child sexual abuse images, court records show.
West Manatee Fire Rescue firefighter Benjamin Dillon, 54, was arrested on Oct. 24 after Sarasota police found folders containing videos of children performing sexual acts and linked to a Google account owned by Dillon, according to a probable cause affidavit. Videos of Dillon masturbating while at work were also found on the account, police said.
Dillon was arrested on an out-of-county warrant by the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office and was charged with possession of obscene material involving the sexual performance of a child, according to the sheriff’s office.
Court records show he was released on Oct. 26 after posting a $150,000 bond.
Dillon’s lawyer declined to comment on the case to the Bradenton Herald.
Rodney Kwiatkowski, Fire Marshal for West Manatee Fire Rescue, said the agency was “extremely distressed” to learn about Dillon’s alleged behavior. He said Dillon has resigned from the department.
“I want to underscore the fact that the alleged behavior by Benjamin Dillon is isolated,” Kwiatkowski said. “It is not reflective of the many exceptional personnel of the WMFRD, who continue to protect and serve our community with commitment, courage and compassion.”
“Additionally, WMFRD has and will continue to cooperate fully with the Sarasota Police Department. We are unable to comment further as the investigation is ongoing,” he added.
Manatee firefighter arrested after Google tip
Detectives wrote in an affidavit that the Sarasota Police Department became aware of the illicit content after receiving a National Center for Missing & Exploited Children cybertip on Aug. 20 concerning three files of suspected child sexual abuse images that were uploaded a couple of days prior.
Investigators said the files were stored in Google Drive and once Google became aware of the illegal content, they submitted a report with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
A detective with the Sarasota Police Department was then assigned to investigate the cybertip by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, where they say they verified at least one of the files was child pornography, while the other two files contained a young girl whose age was “hard to determine” and could be somewhere between 14 to 19 years old.
Court records show that a detective sent subpoenas to Google asking for the subscriber information connected to the Google account where the illicit videos were stored and uploaded. The subscriber information came back with the name “Dillon Baggoo,” a Gmail account using a variation of this name and an IP address, the affidavit says.
Frontier Communications was then subpoenaed for the subscriber information connected to this IP address, detectives said, and it belonged to Benjamin Dillon. Police said the subpoena also turned up a Sarasota address connected to the account.
When an IP address that was included in the initial National Center for Missing & Exploited Children cybertip was later subpoenaed, it showed it as belonging to Bradenton Beach Fire Lodge, the affidavit says.
Child abuse search history found, police say
On Aug. 26, court records show that police were able to provide Google with a signed search warrant for Dillon’s Google account for the time frame of July 21 through Aug. 21. Police said Google responded to the search warrant with four zip files containing images and videos of adult pornography, as well as the child abuse videos from the initial cybertip.
As a result of the warrant, a number of Google searched items also appeared in Dillon’s “my activity folder,” according to the affidavit.
Police said the searches included “Philippine bars that do prostitution,” “Manatee County lifeguard tower have cameras?” and “if out on bond can you leave town?” The affidavit shows there were a number of searches made by the account in August about underage prostitution in the Philippines, such as “16 year old Prostitution Phillipines,” “more child abusers to be jailed for life-Manilla Times” and “12 places to find sex Manilla.”
Detectives said there was also a Google search for a New Zealand-based cloud service, but when they attempted to click on a video link from the site within Dillon’s Google Drive account, they were met with an error box that said the folder had been closed and provided to authorities due to containing “objectionable content.”
The search warrant also confirmed that the Google account was owned by Dillon, according to detectives, who said they found pictures of him in his firefighter uniform, as well as videos of him masturbating at work and home.
“Not only does the Google search warrant results include the child pornography submitted by NMEC, but it also includes search terms associated with child pornography and search history looking up age of consent in foreign countries ... all of this shows a pattern of behavior,” a detective wrote in an affidavit.
