Collier County man faces child pornography charges for Facebook videos

Reporter: Lauren Leslie Writer: Paul Dolan
Published: Updated:
Travis Boles. Credit: Collier County Sheriff’s Office

A Collier County man was arrested Thursday morning and faces child pornography charges for abusive material deputies say he uploaded to Facebook.

According to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, a criminal investigation into Travis Boles, 34, after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sent a cyber tip regarding the upload of possible child sexual abuse material to a Collier County Facebook account. The investigation revealed that Boles had uploaded multiple child pornography videos to his Facebook account and transmitted some of the videos to another Facebook user.

The videos show victims who appear to range in age from 2 to 10 years old engaging in sexual activity with female adults and other children. Detectives confronted Boles with the evidence Thursday and took him into custody.

A former friend, choosing to remain anonymous said, “It really honestly makes me sick because me being a mother you know it’s like you are around my son you know why I left you alone with my son.”

She can’t wrap her head around the charges he old friend is now facing.

The former friend said, “I’m at a loss for words as to how to feel or what to say or you know how he could get into something like this.”

Rich Kolko, WINK News safety and security specialist said there are three ways people like Boles get caught. Kolko said, “Undercover operation by law enforcement, a tip or after an arrest a person provides information on other people that are sharing these videos.”

In this case, it was a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Boles faces seven felony charges: three counts of possession of child pornography, three counts of promoting child pornography, and one count of transmission of child pornography.

The sheriff’s office said they have no reason to believe the children in the videos are located in Southwest Florida.

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