Sex offender charged with international transportation of child porn | News

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A St. Augustine sex offender has been charged federally with transporting child pornography from Florida to Canada.

The United States Attorney's office of Robert E. O'Neill announced the charges against 66-year-old St. Augustine resident Charles Lee Gorish Tuesday, according to a release from O'Neill's office.

If convicted, Gorish faces at least 15 years and up to 40 years in federal prison.

Authorities arrested Gorish at his St. Augustine home September 7.

The release said documents allege Gorish sent a package by using FedEx to a person in Ontario, Canada.

Among the items in the package were two micro SD media cards.  The cards, the release said, contained numerous images of child pornography. Canadian law enforcement intercepted the package.

After it was intercepted, Canadian authorities contacted the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations regarding the package's seizure.

Gorish was already a registered sex offender from a 1992 lewd and lascivious charge from Hillsborough County.

Gorish was arrested at his home September 7 by FBI agents and deputies with the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office.

The release said during an interview, Gorish admitted he acquired the child pornography on the micro SD cards over the past few years via the internet.

The case was brought about as part of Project Safe Childhood, the release said, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources.