The accusations against him included three counts of producing child sexual abuse material, with one count of possession of this type of material, according to an indictment obtained by The Daily Muck.
Landers faces 15 to 30 years in federal prison for each production offense and a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment for the possession offense, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida.
It all began on Oct. 31, 2022, when Landers was arrested for domestic battery and other crimes against his wife.
In the follow-up to the investigation, Ms. Landers went to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office and talked with Deputy Ross Fuller, claiming that she removed the smoke detector and found the camera inside, according to court documents. When confronted, Joshua Landers took the smoke detector away and claimed that “it is not the camera” and “he didn’t place it there.”
Around the same time, Ms. Landers found the image of the interior of the young girl’s bedroom and again asked her husband about it. Joshua Landers responded by snatching his cell phone from her hand.
After getting a search warrant for the Landers’ home, police retrieved an iPad and iPhone. Upon additional examination, it was revealed that both devices were mirror images of each other and contained numerous photos and videos depicting child exploitation material.
The date of sentencing has not yet been determined.
This is not the first case of explicit photos being taken of underage children using hidden cameras.
Passengers on Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas were unpleasantly surprised when Arvin Joseph Mirasol, a 34-year-old man from the Philippines, was arrested in February 2024 and later admitted to placing cameras in passengers’ cabins from December 2023 to February 2024.
The Landers case is another case brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
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