September 18, 2009
Media Contact: Jenn Meale
Phone: (850) 245-0150
Pinellas County Man Gets 15 Years for Promotion, Possession of Child Pornography
TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that a Pinellas County man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for child pornography promotion and possession. Mark Brian Dobson was arrested in March by law enforcement with the Attorney General’s CyberCrime Unit and the St. Petersburg Police. He was prosecuted by the Attorney General’s CyberCrime attorneys.
Investigators with the Attorney General’s Tampa CyberCrime Task Force discovered images of child pornography online during a routine investigation and traced the images back to Dobson’s computer. A search warrant was executed at Dobson’s St. Petersburg residence and computer equipment was seized. Dobson, 26, admitted to possessing the images found online during the investigation, including a series of instructions on how to molest young children.
In addition to his prison sentence, Dobson will serve 10 years of sex offender probation upon his release and must register with the state as a sexual offender. The agencies involved with the investigation are members of the Attorney General’s Tampa CyberCrime Task Force and the Central Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.