300 Child Porn Charges Filed Against Lake Alfred Commissioner: Reports

LAKE ALFRED, FL — A Lake Alfred city commissioner and former mayor was charged with 300 counts of child pornography, authorities said. Charles Lake, 90, was arrested Thursday after deputies found him in possession of hundreds of images and videos of child pornography, according to an affidavit.

Deputies with the Polk County Sheriff's Office served a warrant at his home and Lake admitted to possessing child porn on his computer, FOX Tampa Bay reported. During a search of Lake's home investigators found a thumb drive plugged into a laptop that contained 300 video or image files depicting children between the ages of 2 and 12 engaged in sexual acts.

A tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led local authorities to an Adobe Cloud account that belonged to a Spectrum Communications customer in the Lake Alfred area, WFLA reported.

The arrest report said Lake told investigators he found the child porn after clicking on lewd images of women and “transvestites,” which he said redirected him to the illegal content.

Detectives said Lake admitted to looking at the photos several times a month for sexual excitement.

According to the City of Lake Alfred's website, Lake was appointed mayor in 2012 and served through 2019. He was later elected a city commissioner and his term runs through 2027.