He taught at UM and FIU. Got a master’s at Harvard. And he had 5,000 pieces of child porn
What buyers found after purchasing storage units in Miami and Doral once rented by former University of Miami and FIU adjunct professor Adolfo Albaisa won’t be seen on any episode of “Storage Wars.”
Photos of naked boys in sexually explicit poses, masturbating, engaging in sex. Letters from the North American Man Boy Love Association. A black binder with research about different nations’ ages of consent. A total of 5,000 child pornography images.
Miami native Albaisa, 56, was sentenced Tuesday to 6 1/2 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of child pornography possession. He will have 20 years of supervised release after he finishes prison time.
According to sentencing documents, Albaisa grew up in Miami, went to the Rhode Island School of Design, then earned a master’s in architecture at Harvard in 1994. After coming back to Miami to work at his own company, he taught design at the University of Miami from 1994 to 2002 and FIU from 2000 to 2002.
Miami-Dade police began checking out Albaisa in 2013. That’s when he stopped paying on a storage unit at A+ Mini Storage, 9901 NW 58th St. in Doral, a unit originally rented by a person identified as “N.D.” N.D. passed the unit along to Albaisa in January 2008.
Sentencing documents from Albaisa’s lawyer said he was working as an architect in Jordan and Lebanon from 2011 through July 2018, when his work visa expired. During that time, Albaisa stopped paying on the unit and it was auctioned off, the process seen on the television series “Storage Wars” and similar shows (“Auction Hunters” “Storage Hunters”). Bidders don’t know what’s in the storage units until after the auction.
A woman identified in court documents as “M.C.” won the Jan. 4, 2013, auction for unit E2042 at A+ Mini Storage.
“As M.C. examined the items stored in the unit, she discovered many photographs of nude young males who appeared to be under the age of eighteen and engaged in sexually explicit poses,” court documents say. “M.C. reported her findings to the Doral Police Department.”
Soon after Miami-Dade cops collected what was in the storage unit, A+ Mini Storage’s manager called the lead detective. Albaisa had just called him from somewhere in the Middle East, wanting contact information for the auction winner “so that Albaisa could retrieve important personal documents.”
Along with the child pornography, the boxes had Albaisa’s resume and architectural materials.
While working in Jordan, he fell behind on rent for another unit, this one at the A+ Mini Storage in Miami at 1851 Delaware Pkwy.. Albaisa’s brother originally rented the unit. S.H. won the auction for this unit, No. 1050, on Oct. 19, 2016.
In the seven boxes were “printed images of [child pornography], Boy Scout paraphernalia, photographs of teenage boys at swimming and wrestling matches, letters addressed to Albaisa from the North American Man Boy Love Association (“NAMBLA”), and a black binder compiled by Albaisa with research regarding the age of consent in various countries...”
This story was originally published May 1, 2019 at 2:07 PM.
