TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — A former Tallahassee doctor could face up to 20 years in prison after the FBI raided his home on Tuesday and found more than 10,000 images and videos of child pornography on his laptop.
Samuel T. Adams III, a former medical doctor who voluntary relinquished his license in 2015, made his first appearance in court Wednesday after the FBI raided his home on Miccosukee Road Tuesday. He is facing federal charges for possession of child pornography.
On Feb. 8, 2018, court documents say the FBI received information from an employee at Carbonite, Inc., a company that provides cloud-based online backup service to subsribers via downloaded software.
The employee reported that on Jan. 30, 2018, he spotted child porn on Adams' computer during a remote video help session.
The employee reported that Adams was insistent that he needed to have his data preserved so it could be moved to a new computer or hard drive and gave the employee permission to remotely connect to his computer. While helping him, the employee saw various folders that contained multiple images of pornography depicting young children between the ages of 2 and 9.
When a search warrant issued for the complete contents of Adams' Carbonite account, the Jacksonville FBI office analyzed the contents and found that more than 3.5 million images had been backed up on the account. Of those, at least 10,000 of them were of "investigative interest in child pornography investigations."
Documents say further analysis uncovered approximately 13,700 multimedia files, to include video, were backed up to the account. A review of thousands of the files revealed that there were hundreds of videos of "investigative interest."
On Tuesday, FBI agents raided his Miccosukee Road home which sits right across from Leon High School. During the raid, Adams' laptop was seized.
"A preliminary examination of the laptop revealed numerous images of child pornography organized in folders," the affidavit reads. "One [Adams] computer, the Agents located folders labeled Russian Kids Porn, Real Child Porn, and Pedo Collection."
When agents spoke to him, documents say Adams admitted that he had began downloading child pornography about five years ago and that his most recent download happened two days prior. He stated that he would download about 20 images during each "download session."
Adams was taken into custody to appear in court but was later released back to his home for 24-hour home incarceration. Documents say he is not allowed to have access to the Internet, keep 500 feet away from children, and must not have unsupervised contact with minors. His location is also being tracked via a GPS monitor.
The former doctor could be facing up to 20 years federal prison, up to a $250,000 fine and a lifetime on supervised release. He is due back in court on June 24, 2019.
You can read the full complaint against Adams here.
