EUSTIS, Florida—A Eustis man out on bond for a prior arrest for possessing child pornography has been arrested again after he allegedly received child pornography in an online chat room being monitored by an undercover Homeland Security agent.
Eric Allen Bozeman, 42, who was arrested in 2021 for four counts of possessing child pornography, was arrested again Tuesday at his job, Advance Auto Parts, 2505 South Bay Street, Eustis, by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents. He refused to speak with agents and invoked his right to an attorney, according to an arrest affidavit. He was arrested for two counts of possession of child pornography and is being held on no bond; his bond in the 2021 case has also been revoked.
In this most recent case, Bozeman is accused of receiving two child pornography images in an online chat group through the Wickr application. Wickr encrypts chats and media files, “Other communications platforms store or share their users communications with governing bodies or third-parties. Wickr does not. We will never share the communications of Wickr users. In fact, Wickr does not have access to any encrypted communication conducted on our platform and conversations are never stored on our servers, thanks to our privacy-first architecture. Wickr enables enterprises to implement their own message archival and monitoring regimes in accordance with internal policies and government regulations,” Wickr’s “About Us” section states on its website.
According to the affidavit, in May, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Monterey, California, began targeting online chat groups that included members who shared child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and discussed the sexual abuse of children. In a group named “mostly taboo” Bozeman, under a username so vulgar Inside Lake Cannot publish it, was observed by an undercover HSI agent interacting with other users who were sharing CSAM. Bozeman received two images that were so graphic, Inside Lake cannot publish the descriptions of the images. The two images included four juvenile females believed to be approximately 5 years old.
Bozeman posted sexually graphic comments on both photos.
In early June, the HSI undercover agent, acting as an individual sexually attracted to children, began communicating with Bozeman and asked him what ages he is into. He reportedly replied 6-15, the affidavit states. Bozeman told the agent about a juvenile female he claimed to abuse and said he lost the videos and photos of the abuse when he dropped his phone in the toilet. The following day Bozeman identified himself as “Eric from fl” and said he was 41. Bozeman was 41 at the time of the message; he has since turned 42.
A few days later, the HSI agent sent Bozeman a link to a Snapchat account the agent said belonged to a 12-year-old girl; the agent was actually running the account, pretending to be the girl. The account then received a friend request from eric_bozeman23, according to the affidavit. The agent accepted the request and told Bozeman they were “only 12.” Bozeman communicated with who he believed was the 12-year-old girl and sent inappropriate sexually-charged messages to the “girl,” along with a selfie agents used to match to his driver license photo.
Bozeman also continued to communicate with the undercover agent on Wickr and sent a photo of a juvenile, smiling and wearing a black t-shirt with “Queen Squad” in gold lettering and black pants. Bozeman told the HSI agent he was sexually involved with the juvenile; she has not been identified by law enforcement.
On June 21, the agent, acting as the 12-year-old girl, sent Bozeman a phone number and said she wanted to communicate by text on the phone. Agents then subpoenaed records belonging to the phone number Bozeman was texting from and found he was the subscriber for the phone since February 2020 and the billing address was Pelican Street in unincorporated Eustis—Bozeman’s residence.
The information about Bozeman was then turned over to FDLE and an FDLE agent—the same agent who investigated Bozeman’s 2021 case— received the information about Bozeman, including his address and recognized it from 2021.
“(Special Agent) recognizes the address of 26750 Pelican Street, Eustis Florida from a previous investigation involving Bozeman. In August of 2021 Bozeman was arrested for possession of child pornography and is currently still out on bond pending trial,” the agent wrote in the affidavit.
Bozeman is represented by attorney Bryan Hugo of Maitland in the 2021 case.
