JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A retired Jacksonville school teacher faces up to 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty Thursday to possessing videos and images depicting the sexual abuse of children.
Michael Paul Gillis, 64, of Jacksonville also faces a potential lifetime term of supervised release, according to the Department of Justice.
Officials say Gillis was arrested by FBI agents on Feb. 2, and has been detained since that time. His sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.
FBI agents say they executed a search warrant at Gillis’s home and Gillis, who was home at the time, admitted that he had been accessing child sexual abuse materials using the internet for at least the past 15 years.
Officials say he had viewed materials depicting children as young as 3 years old, and that he currently had “a couple hundred” contraband videos on his computer.
Gillis also admitted that he viewed child sexual abuse materials while working as a teacher and would fantasize about touching children but claimed that he never acted on it, officials say.
During the execution of the search warrant, FBI personnel seized several computers belonging to Gillis that contained at least 2,000 images and 210 videos depicting infants, toddlers, and other young children being sexually abused.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.
This is another case brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 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.
