A Palm Bay man faces years in prison after Brevard County prosecutors convicted him at trial of possession of child pornography.
A jury found GUNNAR C. BESWICK guilty on July 20 of nine counts of possession of material depicting sexual conduct by a child based on evidence presented by prosecutors Pepper Worthy and Francis DeMuro. Key evidence included nine photos obtained from Beswick’s mobile phone that showed prepubescent boys engaged in sex acts.
“In a case like this, we don’t have identifiable victims present, so it can sometimes be overlooked that these are real children in these pictures,” Worthy said. “Even though we can’t identify them, they are real victims. We are trying to protect them and to punish the people looking at them.”
Palm Bay Police detectives investigated and ultimately arrested Beswick, 30, in May 2023 after receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about a video it received that showed child pornography. The video had been saved, shared, or uploaded by a Snapchat user with an email address assigned to Beswick from an internet-provider (IP) address that police traced to the Palm Bay home where Beswick lived. A warranted search of Beswick’s mobile phone revealed the cached photographs, all showing young boys involved in sex acts.
Beswick’s phone had stored the photos over 16 months, revealing a pattern and intent by the phone’s user, prosecutors said. Those images were intermingled with selfies that Beswick took with the phone in a mirror, proving he had control of the device during those same 16 months.
Palm Bay detectives also learned that Beswick was on probation with sex offender conditions stemming from a case in Osceola County. In 2020, Beswick was arrested for traveling to meet a purported 14-year-old boy that he met online for sex. The “boy” turned out to be sheriff’s investigators from Osceola and Polk counties running a joint sting operation. Beswick pled to illegal use of a two-way device and was sentenced to community supervision with GPS monitoring – but was not designated a sex offender.
Beswick now could be sentenced to anywhere from 9.8 years to 45 years in prison under state guidelines. Circuit Judge Kelly Jo McKibben scheduled sentencing for Sept. 22.
“This time, he’ll be designated a sex offender,” DeMuro said. “He’s going to get the label and then all the restrictions.”
Beswick remains held without bond in the Brevard County Jail while he awaits sentencing.