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Zephyrhills man arrested on child porn charges had thousands of videos

 
Billy-Jim Herrington, 39, faces  child porn charges.
Billy-Jim Herrington, 39, faces child porn charges.
Published June 21, 2013

ZEPHYRHILLS — Investigators had Billy-Jim Herrington in their sights since May 1.

They had collected enough information to know he had at least tens of thousands of videos and images depicting child pornography in his possession, said Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. They came to his house that morning with a search warrant and found a laptop and an external hard drive in a cupboard above the kitchen sink, a Pasco Sheriff's report states.

An FDLE agent reviewed the hard drive and found 27,000 files of child pornography, the report states. Herrington, 39, told authorities he downloaded pornographic images of children as old as 15 and as young as 2 "since 'the internet began,'" per the report.

Plessinger accounted for the delay in finding Herrington saying FDLE agents follow dozens of cases simultaneously.

Herrington, of 38114 Seventh Ave., was arrested on 25 counts of possessing child pornography and one count of failing to register a new email address, cherripike@yahoo.com. He was listed on the state's sex offender registry after he was convicted of two counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 16 in April 1995, the agency said.

He was taken in on just 25 counts because investigators are still in the early stages of the investigation, Plessinger said. Agents will keep filing evidence with the State Attorney's Office, which may mean more charges. The investigation may take a while, she said, because agents have to view every file.

He remained in the Land O'Lakes jail Thursday in lieu of $127,500.