A St. Cloud man who pled guilty to charges of producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and enticing children to engage in sexual activity will spend the rest of his life in prison, the Department of Justice announced Monday.
Charles William Maitski, 60, was sentenced to life in federal prison. Maitski pleaded guilty on July 8.
According to court records, St. Cloud Police began investigating in June 2024 after a tip from the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) unit 4 regarding an unknown person using the Discord application to view, possess, and transmit images depicting the sexual performance of children. Investigators learned Maitski hid behind an online persona of a 14-year-old boy named “Chuck" and met victims aged 14 to 15 online through Instagram and Discord. Detectives found Maitski sent his victims hundreds of messages a day, including explicit images and videos of a young teenaged boy he had adopted as his persona. In return, Maitski demanded that his victims perform for him on video calls and record and send him increasingly graphic and degrading photos and videos. Maitski also attempted to convince a victim to molest children she was babysitting. Police say he exchanged more than 50,000 messages with victims and contacted nearly 300 suspected minors between 2023-24.
Usernames and email addresses were linked to an IP address that led investigators to Maitski’s Cabo Rojo Drive St. Cloud home in August 2024, but he was traveling in Pennsylvania. Agents with the Department of Homeland Security interviewed him there, and he verified the Discord account and associated email address belonged to him but claimed he only used them to look at adult pornography. He refused to allow the agents access to cell phones and his laptop computer. Upon his return to St. Cloud, after a judge signed off on a search warrant for his devices, forensic investigators found multiple child sexual assault material (CSAM) videos and images which showed prepubescent and pubescent children that he attempted to deleted in Pennsylvania but were recovered.
After finding more images and chat logs with users who stated they are underage and also send images which shows likely underage female children — some Instagram users who identified themselves as being as young as 12 years of age — a warrant for Maitski's arrest was issued. He was detained leaving St. Cloud Hospital, where a Facebook account in his name showed he worked as a radiology technician, and was arrested on Sept. 25, 2024 on 20 felony charges. Homeland Security Investigations took over the investigation, turning it to the Middle District of Florida for federal charges.
An appeal was filed on his behalf in the U.S. Court of Appeals 11th Circuit on Oct. 27, 2025.
