A St. Cloud man is facing 80 charges of possessing child sexual abuse material.

Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that Adam Wahlgren has been arrested on the charges after the St. Cloud Police Department got a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The lead claimed the 52-year-old Wahlgren possessed, viewed and transmitted the material through Verizon’s data service known as Synchronoss, a cloud storage system owned by the mobile communications company.

The original tip was sent to the Sanford and Orlando Police Departments. Investigators there tracked the internet address in question to the St. Cloud residence. St. Cloud investigators executed a search warrant at Wahlgren’s residential address and found the illegal material on laptop computers, personal computers, tablets, USB drives, SD cards, external drives and 28 hard drives.

But police also found Wahlgren had fled the state. He was tracked down to Lonoke, Arkansas, where he was apprehended by police there on May 1. Wahlgren is expected to be extradited to St. Cloud.

“This predator thought that he could escape the consequences of his depraved behavior by running to another state. He was wrong,” said Uthmeier in a news release Tuesday. “In Florida, we will find you and bring you back to face our prosecutors in court.”

Preliminary analysis of the computer equipment by investigators found volumes of graphic images and videos depicting children being sexually abused. Some of the images included children who were physically bound while undergoing abuse.

Officials estimate there were more than 100,000 illegal files with images found on a single electronic device.

If Wahlgren is convicted of the charges, he could be sentenced to a collective 1,200 years in prison. Police are still investigating the case and Uthmeier said it’s possible more charges could be filed.

Uthmeier’s Senior Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Lauryn Day will prosecute the case in the Ninth Judicial Circuit in Central Florida.

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