2 Naples men arrested for child exploitation

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NAPLES, Fla. – Two young men from Naples were arrested on Thursday for child sexual exploitation.

Jacob Bickel, 2222-year-old Jacob Bruce Bickel, a registered sexual offender, and 18-year-old Michael Donald Roe both face multiple charges for the possession of child pornography.

Bickel was already in Sarasota County Jail for a child porn arrest from 2013. He faces 37 counts for the possession of child pornography, in addition to charges for the transmission of child porn, promoting sexual performance by a child and failure to comply with sexual offender requirements.

michael roeRoe was arrested and booked into the Collier County Jail on 20 counts for the possession of child porn.

The two men exchanged text messages about pornographic images involving young boys, according to warrant affidavits. Both Roe and Bickel met children through the popular messaging app Kik, according to warrant records. They received pictures of children engaging in sexual acts on the app and shared the photos among themselves, records show.

Bickel’s encounters with law enforcement began in 2013 while he was a student at the University of South Florida. Authorities went to his home in Naples after tracing public pornographic images of children to Bickel’s Dropbox account, according to warrant records from 2013. They later interviewed Bickel who told detectives he “had a problem” dating back to when he was 14, his warrant affidavit said.

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