CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) \u2014 A Fort Lauderdale man has pleaded guilty in federal court to charges tied to child sexual abuse material, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
John Badger Thorpe, 69, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to receive and distribute CSAM and two counts of distribution of CSAM.<\/p>\n
Investigators said Thorpe began communicating in December 2023 with former Charleston County Magistrate Judge James Benjamin Gosnell Jr. through text messages and encrypted apps. Authorities said the two discussed a shared sexual interest in minors, including the violent sexual abuse of infants and toddlers.<\/p>\n
Federal officials said that in the summer of 2024, Gosnell traveled to Thorpe\u2019s home in Florida with a flash drive containing CSAM. Investigators said the two viewed the material together, and Gosnell then left the flash drive with Thorpe.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Thorpe later sent the flash drive back to Gosnell in Charleston using FedEx. Authorities also alleged that in August and September 2025, Thorpe distributed CSAM to Gosnell by sending an explicit image of a toddler the men had discussed abusing.<\/p>\n
Thorpe faces a mandatory minimum of five years and up to 20 years in federal prison on each count. He also faces a possible fine of up to $250,000, restitution, and up to a lifetime of supervision after prison.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel accepted Thorpe\u2019s guilty plea and will sentence him after reviewing a report prepared by the U.S. Probation Office.<\/p>\n
Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Katherine Orville and Emily Limehouse are prosecuting it.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WCSC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) \u2014 A Fort Lauderdale man has pleaded guilty in federal court to charges tied to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[95256,42022,249,251,250,3981,121954,121955],"class_list":["post-288109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-child-sexual-abuse-material","tag-csam","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-guilty","tag-john-thorpe","tag-plead"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288109","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=288109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}