A 41-year-old St. Cloud man will spend more than two decades behind bars for possessing child pornography and attempting to entice an undercover agent posing as a child to have sex.
On Monday, Joshua Douglas Dodson was sentenced to 24 years and 5 months in federal prison for enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity and possessing images and videos of children being sexually exploited.
Dodson pleaded guilty to the charges on November 13, 2023.
According to court records, investigators received a cyber tip in November 2021 stating that Dodson had received child sexual abuse material on a social media platform.
When the investigation became public knowledge, a child victim contacted law enforcement regarding an incident with Dodson that had occurred in March 2020. The victim stated that Dodson had asked her to sit on his lap, and he then placed his hands down her pants.
The victim and her mother both gave investigators permission to take over the victim’s cellphone and pose as her. Court records show that during conversations with investigators posing as the victim, Dodson sent multiple nude pictures of himself, along with a video that showed him masturbating.
Dodson also asked for the victim to send him “naughty pics” of herself, and he joked that the victim had him “talking and feeling like (he’s) 15 again.”
In the text exchanges with the decoy, Dodson told the victim to be “cautious” and to delete their messages.
During the conversations, Dodson and the law enforcement officer posing as the victim agreed to meet on November 7, 2022. When Dodson arrived at the scheduled meeting location, officers surrounded his truck and seized his cellphone.
Dodson’s cellphone was searched and multiple images depicting child sexual abuse were discovered. Investigators observed that the images appeared to have been taken using a hidden camera.
Dodson was placed under arrest and transported to Osceola County Jail.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Noah P. Dorman.