“He was up front and admitted to the iPod being his,” Merriman said.
The iPod was found about two weeks ago in an apartment complex.
“The person who found it saw images of a pornographic nature on it and thought it should be turned in,” Merriman said.
Essaf has been charged with 20 counts of child pornography, according to an arrest report, and detectives expect that number to grow as their investigation continues.
Essaf told detectives he has less than 1,000, but more than 800 images and videos of child porn, 
After being read his rights, he told detectives the youngest child in his collection is about 11 or 12 years old, the report stated. The arrest report, however, also stated that some of the images found appeared to depict children as young as 7.
So far all the images and videos found are of children estimated to be less than 14 years old, the report said.
Essaf also told detectives that he keeps about 95 percent of his child pornography on his external hard drive, the report said. “When we did a search of his residence we seized all his electronics,” Merriman said.
Investigators from the Bradenton Police Department are working with officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on the case, Merriman said. A computer forensics analysis is ongoing as well.
In the past, Essaf worked for the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office for a year in hopes of becoming a dispatch operator, according to sheriff’s spokesman Dave Bristow.
He was let go in March because of his performance and got a job working with a temp agency that the sheriff’s office uses to handle dispatch calls, Bristow said.
Court records do not show Essaf having any prior convictions of child pornography and he is not a registered sex offender in Florida.
Essaf is currently in Manatee County jail on a $500,000 bond.
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