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Colorado sex offender holed up in boat in Florida Keys looking at child porn, feds say

About two weeks ago, Robert James Brown flew down from Colorado to start a new life living on a sailboat he recently bought in the Florida Keys.

The problem is, Brown, 44, wasn’t allowed to leave the state without telling Colorado law enforcement because he is a registered child sex offender, according to court records.

He also was supposed to tell law enforcement in Monroe County that he moved to the Keys.

To top it off, federal agents with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations say that in the short time he was living on his boat, the Toscana, in the Sunset Marina in Key West, he was downloading horrific child pornography videos on his cellphone.

Agents executed a search warrant on the sailboat Tuesday and arrested Brown Wednesday morning, according to the complaint.

The document describes in graphic detail three of 10 videos agents found on Brown’s phone depicting children from 5 to 8 years being raped by adults.

According to the complaint, Brown told agents he was a registered sex offender in Colorado, and that he moved to the Keys without informing authorities in his home state nor those in the city of Key West or Monroe County.

According to the Greeley Tribune in Colorado, Brown was arrested in May 2018 after speaking on the phone with a woman who turned out to be an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent.

The woman told Brown she was the mother of a 14-year-old girl, and they liked to have sex with men together, the newspaper reported.

In a text message conversation with Brown, the agent asked him if he knew having sex with minors was illegal. According to the paper, which quoted court records, he texted back, “Yep, LOL. I can keep a secret.”

The agent set up a meeting at a hotel room in the town of Greeley. Agents arrested Brown when he arrived, the Tribune reported.