His church co-workers wanted to play a prank. They found child porn instead, cops say

A former worship director was arrested after child pornography was accidentally discovered on his personal laptop computer.

According to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office, on May 11 co-workers of 36-year-old Hernando resident Chad Robison wanted to play a prank on him by messing with his mouse and keyboard settings on his personal laptop, which he often brought to work with him at Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church in Lecanto. But the church employees found porn, according to the probable cause affidavit.

The next day, other co-workers decided to investigate what extent of porn was on the computer, according to the affidavit. A video surfaced of a screen recording of Robison and a 14-year-old girl who he was trying to get to take off her clothes and masturbate, the affidavit said. Several videos dating back to 2013 existed on the computer, the sheriff’s office reported, and some videos were secretly recorded in the bathroom of his home.

During a recent press conference, Citrus Sheriff Mike Prendergast said more than 3,000 videos and more than 350,000 images have been found. There are victims from all over the country as well as possibly from Canada, he added, so anyone who thinks they may be a victim of Robison can contact major crimes detectives regarding this case at 352-726-1121.

“According to my detectives, this case is a textbook case of an online sexual predator,” Prendergast said.

Robison faces one count of promoting the sexual performance of a child, three counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition live over a computer online service and three counts of video voyeurism. His bond is set at $46,000.

This story was originally published July 18, 2017 at 10:25 AM with the headline "His church co-workers wanted to play a prank. They found child porn instead, cops say."