A 36-year-old Gainesville man was arrested Thursday, August 6, 2026, after local authorities executed a search warrant at his residence in connection with an internet child exploitation investigation.
Anthony T. Leslie was taken into custody by the Gainesville Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Unit and the GPD SWAT team.
The operation followed multiple CyberTips forwarded to GPD by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), which reported that a Google account was actively storing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Lead investigator Detective Montague identified Leslie as the account holder linked to the address. During an interview with officers on scene, Leslie confessed to possessing the illicit content.
According to police records, Leslie admitted to investigators that he “messed up” and acknowledged that officers were at the home as a direct result of his actions. He informed detectives that CSAM was stored on his mobile phone and estimated that his account held approximately 500 files of abuse material.
During questioning, Leslie also disclosed that he had been the focus of a similar child exploitation inquiry years earlier in Oklahoma that ended without charges because authorities could not confirm the suspect’s identity at the time. GPD officers subsequently verified that law enforcement had executed a CSAM-related search warrant at an Oklahoma residence connected to Leslie in February 2013.
A preliminary search of Leslie’s cellphone at the scene confirmed the presence of CSAM. Detectives seized all electronic devices found in the residence for forensic evaluation.
Leslie was charged with ten counts of Possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material after investigators identified nearly 800 images stored within his cloud-based account.
Following the arrest, the Gainesville Police Department issued a statement advising parents that minors face ongoing solicitation risks on social networking and messaging platforms, encouraging families to maintain open dialogue regarding online safety.
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