PLANTATION, Fla. – An FBI SWAT team raid at a Plantation apartment Wednesday led to the arrest of a 38-year-old man for sharing child sexual abuse videos online, authorities said.
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According to a federal criminal complaint, Carl Cunningham was using the messaging app Kik to send and receive illicit content.
The complaint states that the investigation into Cunningham began on Feb. 8, after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children forwarded a tip from Kik to Plantation police that he had uploaded 39 videos to his account in November 2024.
The videos depicted young girls, some of whom were “clearly and obviously” under 10 years old, being raped and sexually abused, authorities said.
A search warrant of his account revealed additional videos, according to the complaint.
Authorities said they also discovered chat messages where he discussed sharing child sexual abuse material, as well as messages where he talked about how he “seeks out children for sexual encounters while bragging about his past sexual experiences.”
The complaint states that in one chat, he described grooming and raping a 12-year-old girl, calling it the “best time ever.”
Authorities said they were able to identify Cunningham through his IP address and pictures of himself he uploaded through Kik, including a picture he uploaded of himself holding two fingers to his face he sent as verification in order to re-access a group chat sharing child sexual abuse material.
They said they were also able to connect the account to Cunningham from his “Everyman Tactical” YouTube channel, where he handled and reviewed various guns.
According to the complaint, he once owned a gun store of the same name in the Houston suburb of Humble, Texas.
Authorities said they surveilled Cunningham’s apartment building at 6851 Cypress Road multiple times in late March, ahead of Wednesday’s raid.
After the raid, authorities said Cunningham denied having a Kik account, sending messages, or sharing child sexual abuse material.
He’s now facing federal charges of possession and distribution of child pornography and appeared in Fort Lauderdale federal court Wednesday morning.
He’s scheduled for a pre-trial detention hearing Friday morning and is set to be arraigned April 23.
As of Thursday, he was being held in the Broward Main Jail on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service.