The FBI’s child pornography case against suspect David Lee Huber remains largely under investigation on Thursday – two days after he allegedly looked through a doorbell camera and fired an assault weapon through the closed door of his South Florida apartment, and two FBI agents are killed. to serve a federal warrant and injure three others.
Huber, who according to the investigators allegedly turned the gun on himself and died of suicide, was the subject of a “child pornography case,” an unnamed law enforcement official told the Miami Herald. This meant that he was suspected of dealing with images of minors having sex, not the more serious crime of producing and distributing illegal graphic images.
The full extent of Huber’s online activities is still being investigated, and the FBI is evaluating a hard drive from Huber’s computer and other evidence found after the deadly raid Tuesday, the source told the Herald. The federal warrant authorizing agents to search the address remains sealed, and the FBI has publicly disclosed little details about the case against Huber and what happened during the raid.
SUSPENDED IN DEADLY FLORIDA FBI SHOOTING IDENTIFIED AS DAVID LE HUBER, SOURCES CONFIRMED
The Florida court records show Huber only minor traffic offenses. The 55-year-old had no mention as a sex offender and no prison record in Florida. According to records, he owned computer consulting businesses from 2008 to last year. He was licensed as a commercial pilot in 1994.
According to Broward County records, he was divorced in 2016. Fox News’ attempts to contact his ex-wife and two sons were unsuccessful.
An FBI forensic team is being flown in from Washington, DC, and the property and enclosed community in Sunrise, Florida, where the raid took place, was cordoned off Wednesday.
FBI AGENTS KILLED IN FLORIDA: SUSPECTED USED BY BELL CAM, FIRED ASSAULT RIFLE BY CLOSED DOOR
Mike Leverock, special agent of the FBI in Miami, told the Herald “an inspection team” from Washington, DC, “is reviewing the incident” and gathering forensic evidence in Huber’s apartment.
FBI Director Christopher Wray also flew to South Florida on Wednesday to visit the shooting scene. He then went to the Miramar’s office to meet the families of the murdered agents and members of the child pornography task force, as well as Ariana Fajardo Orshan, the U.S. attorney, and her first assistant, prosecutor Tony Gonzalez, the Herald reported. .
The FBI identified the two agents killed Tuesday as Laura Schwartzenberger and Daniel Alfin.
The office said Wednesday two wounded FBI agents were released from Broward Medical Center. A third wounded agent was treated at the scene and did not require hospitalization.
FBI AGENTS KILLER IN DEATH AMBUSH OF HOSPITAL
Schwartzenberger, 43, and an agent for 15 years were part of Rockway Middle School’s magnetic program for legal studies, which taught children about the dangers of the Internet, including sexual exploitation and cyberbullying. She is married and had two children.
Alfin, 36, and an agent for nearly 13 years were married with one child and made headlines seven years ago when he led a team that ousted a man from Naples, Florida, who was the chief administrator of Playpen, the world’s most famous website for child pornography.
Steven Chase created the site on Tor, an open network on the Internet where users could communicate anonymously via ‘hidden service’ sites. Playpen had more than 150,000 users worldwide. Members uploaded and viewed tens of thousands of graphic images of young victims, categorized by age, gender, and type of sexual activity involved. The FBI launched an investigation in 2014 after Playpen’s IP address was accidentally revealed.
Following the arrest of Chase in 2015, the FBI held the site for two weeks to identify other users and hide malware in the images to discover their IP addresses, reports Associated Press. From this effort, investigators sent more than 1,000 clues to FBI field offices across the country and thousands more to overseas law enforcement agencies.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
According to the FBI, 350 people have been arrested in the US and 548 internationally, including 25 child pornography producers and 51 abusers. The operation identified or rescued 55 American children who had been sexually abused and 296 internationally. Chase turned 30 years old.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.