Brooksville man charged after child pornography probe, sheriff says

A Brooksville man is facing felony charges after Hernando County investigators turned a national child-exploitation tip into a search of a Salvini Drive home, seized electronic devices and, months later, filed an arrest warrant.

The case began when the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received information on Sept. 30, 2025 about suspected child pornography possession. That tip was routed to Hernando County Sheriff’s Office detectives through the agency’s Internet Crimes Against Children work, part of a system built around NCMEC’s CyberTipline, the nationwide reporting channel created in 1998 for suspected online child exploitation.

Detectives developed probable cause for a search warrant at the residence on Salvini Drive, and the warrant was executed on Nov. 26, 2025. During the search, investigators contacted Carl Ernest Thompson, 72, who declined to speak with them. Multiple electronic devices were taken from the home, and a forensic examination of one device allegedly uncovered a file containing child pornography.

An arrest warrant was later issued on May 5, 2026, charging Thompson with one count of possession of child pornography and one count of unlawful use of a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony. He was booked into the Hernando County Detention Center and is being held with no bond on the possession charge and a $5,000 bond on the communication-device charge.

The communication-device count is frequently paired with child-exploitation charges in Florida when investigators say electronic devices, accounts or online communication were used in the offense. In cases like this one, the evidence often unfolds in stages: a tip, a warrant, a device seizure and a lengthy forensic review before charges are filed.

Sheriff Al Nienhuis has said the agency has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material and that all such tips are thoroughly investigated. Hernando County has seen other recent child-exploitation cases, including a June 2025 Brooksville arrest that began with a tip and ended with multiple CSAM charges, and a September 2025 case involving a former church youth leader in Brooksville that also started with a NCMEC tip. Together, the cases show how digital evidence and national reporting systems are driving local child-exploitation investigations in Hernando County.