DANIA BEACH, Fla. – It was 6 a.m., on Thursday. A military-like unit of the Broward Sheriff’s Office entered a two-bedroom apartment in Dania Beach to arrest Anthony Cruz, a suspect in a child sexual exploitation case.
There were two others with Cruz, 40, in the Danians complex apartment near East Dania Beach Boulevard and Southeast Fifth Avenue — and about a mile from an elementary school.
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Deputies had a search warrant and found Cruz’s Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone on his bed with more than 10 images of child sex abuse victims as young as 4 years old, according to the BSO arrest report.
“I also located additional files of child pornography in a search warrant return for the defendant’s Kik account,” BSO Detective Christopher DePelisi wrote in the report about the Kik instant messaging mobile app,
The child sex abuse images associated with Cruz’s Kik account were of both boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 13 years old, DePelisi reported, according to the arrest report.
MediaLab.AI, a California-based digital media company, alerted the National Center For Missing And Exploited Children about the “hwd28th” Kik account registered under the “HollywoodHug360@aol.com” e-mail. The center notified law enforcement.
“Through legal process and additional intelligence, I was able to identify and locate the defendant,” DePelisi wrote in his report.
BSO correctional deputies booked Cruz on Thursday at the main jail in Fort Lauderdale and he appeared in bond court on Friday. He is facing 11 third-degree charges: 10 counts of possess/control/view depiction child sex conduct, and one count of compile, enter computer pornography re minor.
A judge set his bond at $110,000, including $10,000 for each charge.
Detectives asked anyone with information about this or other cases to call Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.