Orlando, Florida – U.S. District Judge Paul G. Byron has sentenced Charles William Maitski (60, of St. Cloud) to life in federal prison for producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and enticing children to engage in sexual activity. Maitski pleaded guilty on July 8, 2025.
According to court documents, law enforcement began investigating Maitski after receiving a tip in June 2024. They discovered that he had been sexually exploiting children online since at least 2012. Through a series of search warrants and interviews with victims, authorities learned that Maitski had been using an online persona of a 14-year-old boy named “Chuck” to communicate with his young victims. He groomed these children using social media platforms, including Instagram and Discord.
To build trust with his victims, Maitski sent them hundreds of messages each day, which included explicit images and videos of the young boy he pretended to be. In return, he demanded that his victims perform sexual acts for him during video calls and record and send him increasingly graphic and degrading CSAM. He even attempted to persuade one victim to molest children she was babysitting. Between 2023 and 2024, Maitski exchanged more than 50,000 messages with his victims and contacted nearly 300 minors or suspected minors on Instagram and Discord, sending, receiving, or directing the production of hundreds of images and videos of CSAM. This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the St. Cloud Police Department, and it was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Richard Varadan.
This case is a part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched by the Department of Justice in May 2006 to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
