A 52-year-old Saint Cloud man who fled Florida to avoid state charges of possessing child sexual abuse materials was captured and arrested earlier this week in Arkansas.
The State Attorney General's Office announced Adam Wahlgren was arrested, thanks to local police efforts, on 80 counts of CSAM charges. If convicted as charged, Wahlgren faces up to 1,200 years in prison — and more charges may be filed as needed in the ongoing investigation.
According to state officials, detectives began investigating Wahlgren when the St. Cloud Police Department received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that he was possessing, viewing, and transmitting CSAM via Synchronoss, Verizon’s data storage service from a St. Cloud IP address.
St. Cloud Police executed a search warrant at Wahlgren’s residence within the city, a report from Attorney General James Uthmeier's office noted, and multiple electronic devices were seized including a tablet, two laptop computers, a desktop computer, nine USB drives, two external drives, two SD cards, and 28 hard drives.
Forensic extractions of the devices led to the discovery of extremely graphic images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children, including files in which young children were physically bound. Over 100,000 files were located on a single device, the State Attorney's office said.
During this investigation, Wahlgren fled the state, only to be located in Lonoke, Ark. on May 1. He remains in the Lonoke County Jail and is expected to be extradited back to Florida.
“This predator thought that he could escape the consequences of his depraved behavior by running to another state. He was wrong,” Attorney General Uthmeier said. “In Florida, we will find you and bring you back to face our prosecutors in court.”
