TALLAHASSEE, FL LAWFUEL – Legal News Service – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that his CyberCrime Unit has arrested a former special education teacher from Orlando on charges of child pornography possession. Michael Mance II formerly worked as a special education teacher at Riverside Elementary in Orange County. He was arrested today by law enforcement officers with the Attorney Generals CyberCrime Unit and the Orange County Sheriffs Office.
Investigators discovered Mances possession of child pornography during an undercover internet investigation that identified known images of child pornography and traced the files back to Mances computer. A search warrant was executed at Mances Orlando home and his computer was seized, along with additional computer equipment. Mance, 50, admitted to knowingly possessing the images identified during the undercover investigation, many of which appeared to be of children as young as nine years of age.
The computer and other equipment seized will undergo additional forensic analysis to determine whether any additional images of child pornography are present. Mance was booked into the Orange County Jail. He will be charged with one count of possession of child pornography, a third-degree felony which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. Additional charges could also be added at a later date.
The Child Predator CyberCrime Unit’s mission is to protect children from computer-facilitated sexual exploitation. The unit does this by working cooperatively on a statewide basis with law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to provide resources and expertise, while preventing the spread of these crimes through education and community awareness. The CyberCrime Unit and the Orange County Sheriffs Office are members of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) of Central Florida. The CyberCrime Unit is also part of the FBI’s Innocent Images Task Force.
