MIAMI — A Plantation man is facing federal charges after authorities said he was caught with child sexual abuse videos after getting off a cruise at PortMiami, according to newly-public court documents.
Steve Lee Lawson, 45, was taken into custody after disembarking the Norwegian Getaway on Friday after it arrived from the Bahamas, according to a federal criminal complaint. Records show he faced a Miami federal judge on Monday.
In the complaint, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent wrote that customs officers referred Lawson to a secondary inspection, searched his phone and found two illicit videos in a messaging application. They said they later found more than a dozen child sexual abuse videos.
Those clips included a “video over (one) hour in length that simultaneously played three separate compilation videos that depict approximately more than 100 prepubescent (girls)” being raped and sexually abused, according to the complaint.
Authorities said the application showed that Lawson downloaded the clips while the ship was docked in the Bahamas. They said he admitted to paying for the videos using cryptocurrency and claimed “that he was enticed to do so after he observed female minors in bikinis on the cruise.”
Records show that Lawson, facing federal charges related to the possession and transportation of child sexual abuse material, remained in the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami as of Tuesday afternoon. No booking photo was available.
The complaint indicates that authorities are seeking to keep him locked up on pre-trial detention.
Lawson, after appearing in Miami federal court on Monday, was ordered held ahead of a pre-trial detention hearing scheduled for Thursday, court documents show.
In those documents, prosecutors said they are seeking to keep him locked up “based on risk of flight.”
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