[PHOTO CREDIT: Lake County Sheriff’s Office]
[Original Publish Date: 08/14/20]
LEESBURG, Florida — A Lake EMS dispatcher is facing 20 counts of possession of a sexual performance by a child after Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) agents searched his Barksdale Drive home Tuesday.
Acting on a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in June, FDLE began investigating and linked the child pornography to John Tharan Knotts, 30, whose listed occupation is Lake EMS dispatcher on his arrest affidavit.
During its search, FDLE found a homemade desktop computer with an external hard drive and “multiple digital image/video files depicting child sexual exploitation material were discovered,” the affidavit states. Ten of those images are described in the affidavit, some of them depicting children as young as 4 years old.
A hard disk drive was also found with multiple images, and 10 of those images were also described in the affidavit; they depicted girls as young as 10 years old.
Knotts was arrested and taken to the Lake County Jail where he was released on $60,000 bond.
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Our Editor-in-Chief, Marilyn M. Aciego, began writing for Lake Legal News in 2010. Born and raised in Lake County, she is a graduate of Umatilla High School and Lake-Sumter State College. She started her journalism career at LSSC, where she was editor of both student publications, The Angler and The Odyssey. Her professional career began at the Daily Commercial in 2004 where she covered cops and courts the majority of her time there until she left in 2009. Currently, along with being Editor-in-Chief of Lake Legal News, she is the Florida bureau chief for an international media organization. She has made more than two dozen appearances on live national television, including Nancy Grace and the Greta Van Susteren show, along with her appearance on Evil Twins. Contact her with breaking news, tips, and feedback by sending an e-mail to 352Tips@gmail.com. You can also contact us on our Facebook page — and make sure you “Like” and “Follow us” there. [PHOTO CREDIT: Bonnie Whicher]
