{"id":106621,"date":"2026-01-05T19:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T19:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/106621\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T19:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T19:40:08","slug":"cruise-passenger-cuffed-at-port-everglades-after-agents-find-child-sex-abuse-videos-feds-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/106621\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruise passenger cuffed at Port Everglades after agents find child sex abuse videos, feds say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0January 5, 2026 at 1:00 PM<\/p>\n<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Updated:\u00a0January 5, 2026 at 1:44 PM<\/p>\n<p>lead-art-block.fullscreen-enterExpand<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/6MDHNGZR2ZFLNLCBZSOQM3ONTY.jpg\"  width=\"720\" height=\"405\"\/>Samuel Peterson (BSO) <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 An Alabama man made his initial appearance in a South Florida federal courtroom on Monday after federal agents said they found child sexual abuse videos on his electronic devices after he got off a cruise ship over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2026\/01\/05\/lo-agarraron-en-crucero-con-20-videos-de-abuso-sexual-infantil\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2026\/01\/05\/lo-agarraron-en-crucero-con-20-videos-de-abuso-sexual-infantil\/\">Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Court documents state that agents took Samuel Wolfe Peterson, 22, of Huntsville, Alabama, into custody at Port Everglades on Saturday, soon after he got off the Majestic Princess.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Customs officers conducting a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbp.gov\/travel\/cbp-search-authority\/border-search-electronic-devices\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cbp.gov\/travel\/cbp-search-authority\/border-search-electronic-devices\">border search<\/a> on Peterson\u2019s cellphone and laptop found about 20 videos of victims as young as toddlers being raped and sexually abused, agents said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">They said Peterson admitted to having the illicit videos and admitted to sharing a \u201cviolent\u201d video \u201cdepicting an infant\u201d online.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He also admitted to receiving child sexual abuse material from about \u201cfour or five minors\u201d aged 14 to 16 and admitted to meeting one of them for \u201csexual contact,\u201d court documents state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Peterson now faces two federal charges related to the possession and transportation of child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Records show Peterson appeared in Fort Lauderdale federal court on Monday morning, where a judge ordered that he be held ahead of a pre-trial detention hearing on Tuesday. He\u2019s scheduled to be arraigned on Jan. 20.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">As of Monday afternoon, records show Peterson was being held at the Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office Main Jail facility on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Chris Gothner\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/author-service-images-sandbox-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/3be3b5ed-fb4b-43ce-8b.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Chris Gothner <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Chris Gothner joined the Local 10 News team in 2022 as a Digital Journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0January 5, 2026 at 1:00 PM Updated:\u00a0January 5, 2026 at 1:44 PM lead-art-block.fullscreen-enterExpandSamuel Peterson (BSO) FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":{"0":"post-106621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-fort-lauderdale","9":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","10":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}