CLAY COUNTY, Fla. – A Clay County man was arrested Thursday on 10 counts of child pornography possession.
As of Monday, Patrick Roach, 62, remained in the Clay County jail on $250,000 bond, according to online jail records.
According to an arrest report, the case against Roach began in August when Clay County detectives received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The report shows the tip was about files of child pornography being uploaded to a Microsoft account.
According to the arrest report, the account was traced back to Roach’s IP address, which led to a search warrant being served last week at his home in a gated community past the entrance to Orange Park Country Club.
The arrest report says Roach “admitted to intentionally searching for and saving child sexual abuse files.” The report also says he “stated he has over 1,000 images of child sexual abuse material.”
On Monday, Detective Ryan Ellis with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Unit showed News4Jax the various tools his team uses to crack computers from any era.
“All around here in the room are forensic machines that we use to forensically process and examine evidence that we seize during investigations,” Ellis explained. “Anything and everything and in every way possible -- as ancient as 3 ½ floppies to writable CDs, thumb drives, micro SD cards, cellphones, hard drives.”
There’s also CCSO K-9 Ty, who is specially trained to sniff out a chemical in computers. He’s helpful during raids, and he also comforts children who are victims. CCSO says Ty has been useful in helping solve dozens of internet-based sex crimes and he’s been loaned out to help other agencies, including the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI.
News4Jax also spoke Monday with Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook about the added threat that exists when law enforcement officers make child pornography arrests. That was evident earlier this month when two FBI agents serving a federal search warrant in a child pornography case were killed in a shooting at a South Florida apartment.
“I think, from the law enforcement perspective, we’ve always recognized and realized just how dangerous these types of search warrants are,” Cook said. “And we’ve always taken, at least since I’ve been here, the necessary precautions because they are dangerous.”