PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — A Ponte Vedra Beach man will spend nearly eight years in federal prison for knowingly receiving a video showing the sexual abuse of a baby, as well as numerous other files of child sexual abuse content.
A judge sentenced 40-year-old Harrison Holland Frith to seven years and 11 months in prison for receiving videos depicting child sexual abuse. Frith was also ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution to a victim of his crimes, to serve 10 years of supervised release after his prison sentence and to register as a sex offender, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Frith pleaded guilty to his charges on Oct. 27, 2021. According to court documents, Homeland Security investigators in Jacksonville received information from agents in Fayetteville, Arkansas, that they had identified a man in Arkansas who was communicating online with Frith via Zoom and RingCentral meeting platforms to share child sexual abuse material.
The content shared included videos of the man in Arkansas sexually abusing a child between the ages of 5 and 6 years old, according to court documents. Investigators discovered Frith in other social media chatrooms discussing and sharing child sexual abuse material as well.
Homeland Security agents in Jacksonville executed a federal search warrant at Frith's home in Ponte Vedra Beach on May 18, 2021, according to the release. Frith admitted to receiving child sexual abuse videos over the internet and to participating in online video meetings during which child sexual abuse videos were played, the release says.
Frith told investigators he requested videos of the sexual abuse of children as young as 8 years old, but when agents searched his files, they found a video including the sexual abuse of a baby boy, according to the release. A search of Frith's electronic devices yielded child sex abuse material on two laptops, an iPad and a thumb drive, the release says.
Homeland Security Investigations, the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office and the Clay County Sheriff's Office worked together on the investigation.
The case was investigated as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
