A 45-year-old man from Apopka was sentenced to spend the next 10 years behind bars after authorities found that he downloaded multiple videos depicting children under the age of 12 being sexually abused.
Patrick James Sperber was sentenced earlier this week by U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton to spend 10 years in federal prison for possession of child sexual abuse images and videos. Sperber pled guilty to the charges in May 2023.
In 1999, Sperber was convicted of lewd and lascivious assault on a child. Since then, he has been registered as a sex offender.
According to court records, in April 2021, an Electronic Service Provider submitted a cyber tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding an individual with username “P.J. Sperber.”
The tip indicated that the individual had uploaded several videos depicting the sexual abuse of minor using a messenger application. Through their investigation, authorities determined that the Internet Protocol address used to upload the videos was registered to Sperber’s home.
A year later, in April 2022, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents executed a search warrant for Sperber’s residence and seized his cellphone. A forensic review of his cellphone revealed multiple images and videos depicting child sexual abuse. Several of the videos included children under the age of 12 being sexually abused.
At the time, Sperber admitted to viewing child sex abuse imagery and videos using a chat app account on his cellphone.