{"id":313153,"date":"2026-06-19T15:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T15:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/313153\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T15:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T15:07:08","slug":"man-now-faces-federal-charges-after-cruise-ship-voyeurism-incident-authorities-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/313153\/","title":{"rendered":"Man now faces federal charges after cruise ship voyeurism incident, authorities say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 A 25-year-old Illinois man arrested in early June at Port Everglades after being <a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/news\/local\/2026\/06\/09\/man-facing-video-voyeurism-charges-after-allegedly-photographing-13-year-old-on-cruise-ship\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/news\/local\/2026\/06\/09\/man-facing-video-voyeurism-charges-after-allegedly-photographing-13-year-old-on-cruise-ship\/\">accused of cruise ship voyeurism<\/a> is now facing federal charges, according to court documents filed on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2026\/06\/19\/acusan-a-hombre-de-cargos-federales-tras-incidente-de-voyeurismo-en-crucero-dicen-autoridades\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2026\/06\/19\/acusan-a-hombre-de-cargos-federales-tras-incidente-de-voyeurismo-en-crucero-dicen-autoridades\/\">Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Besides three state voyeurism charges stemming from a June 7 arrest by the Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office, Matthew Stilwell is now facing three federal charges related to the attempted production, transportation and possession of child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Authorities said it all began with a May 31 incident on Royal Caribbean\u2019s Allure of the Seas where Stilwell, of Pawnee, Illinois, attempted to take a photo under the dress of a 13-year-old girl whom he knew while the two were in a gift shop.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">According to a federal criminal complaint, Stilwell told Royal Caribbean security that he had photos of eight to nine other children on his cellphone, including \u201cnude photos of minors on the device that were AI generated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Later, after the ship returned to South Florida on June 7, federal customs officers and Homeland Security Investigations agents searched the phone, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">They said they found the photos of the victim that prompted the original arrest, as well as AI-generated photos depicting the same victim nude.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Authorities said that Stilwell \u201cadmitted to using AI websites to create pornographic images of minors\u201d and said most were \u201cnot girls he knew,\u201d adding that he \u201ctook photos of several 17-year-old girls on Instagram and used AI to remove their clothing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Stilwell remained in the custody of the Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office as of Friday and was being being held in the agency\u2019s Paul Rein Detention Facility in Pompano Beach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Stilwell\u2019s online federal court file does not list any upcoming hearings as of Friday morning; besides the complaint, the rest was listed as \u201csealed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">His state voyeurism case also doesn\u2019t have any upcoming hearings listed in Broward online court records.<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 A 25-year-old Illinois man arrested in early June at Port Everglades after being accused&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-313153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313153","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=313153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}