Man who worked at a Palm Beach animal park will serve nearly 6 years on child porn charge
A former animal keeper at a Palm Beach animal park will serve nearly six years in federal prison and another 15 years of probation after pleading guilty to a charge of possessing child pornography, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced this week.
Justin Alban, who worked as a zookeeper at Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, was arrested in August 2020 and pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child porn in October 2020.
According to a criminal complaint, the 31-year-old used a peer-to-peer network online to obtain child pornography between 2019 and 2020.
In August, law enforcement officers secured a search warrant of Alban’s West Palm Beach home. Agents, according to the complaint, found explicit material on his computers.
Alban admitted to using a network to download child pornography, per the complaint.
A spokeswoman for Lion Country Safari said the park was first alerted to the investigation in August 2020. Alban, whose role was primarily animal care, was then terminated.
“Lion Country Safari fully cooperated with law enforcement agents to provide park access to search all areas Alban had access to,” the park said in a statement. “We have verified that nothing was recovered on site, and there is no indication that his criminal activities ever took place here.”
The statement continued: “No behavior was ever reported or documented to indicate capacity for this kind of criminal behavior.”
This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 4:40 PM.
