A Lee County middle school teacher is being held in the county jail on eleven felony counts filed by state agents, and the booking record shows why the count is eleven rather than one, because Florida law makes each individual image its own separate offence

A Lee County middle school teacher is in the county jail on eleven felony counts, and the county's own booking record shows all eleven were filed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on a single case number.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office publishes its booking database as a public search, and this publication queried it directly on Saturday afternoon rather than resting on the television account alone.

That record returns one matching booking. Graham Freeman, 56, of Cape Coral was booked at 5.39 p.m. on Thursday under booking number 1029848. Eleven counts are recorded against him, all under case number 26CF000446, with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement listed as the arresting agency and a hearing listed for 8.30 a.m. on Monday in circuit court. The record showed no release as of Saturday afternoon, and listed his housing as a dormitory in the county's core facility.

Ten of the counts are the same count. Each is recorded under offence code 827.071(5)(a), which the jail describes as possessing, controlling, viewing or soliciting obscene material depicting child pornography. Each of those ten carries a bond of 500,000 dollars.

The eleventh is recorded under offence code 828.126(2)(e), described as filming or possessing an image or video of animal sexual activity, and it carries a bond of 100,000 dollars.

Added together, the eleven recorded amounts come to 5.1 million dollars. That sum is this publication's arithmetic on the record rather than a figure any authority has announced. No bond is recorded as posted against any of the eleven counts.

The reason there are ten identical counts rather than one is in the statute. Section 827.071 of the Florida statutes, which covers sexual performance by a child and child pornography, provides in subsection (5)(a) that the solicitation, possession, control or intentional viewing of each depiction is a separate offence, and that where a depiction includes more than one child, each child in each depiction is a separate offence as well. The section makes each such violation a felony of the third degree. Section 828.126, covering sexual activities involving animals, makes the eleventh count a third degree felony too.

So the count reflects how the statute divides the alleged material, not a ranking of the case. Bond is set per count, and the counts are set per item, which is what produces the total above.

The booking record establishes the counts, the codes, the bond amounts, the case number, the arresting agency and the hearing date. It does not say where he works.

That detail comes from WINK News, which reports from the arrest affidavit that Freeman told investigators he is employed by the School District of Lee County as a middle school science teacher at Success Academy. This publication has not read the arrest affidavit, and none of it appears in the booking record.

No statement from the School District of Lee County about the teacher's employment status could be retrieved by this publication on Saturday, and no press release from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on this arrest could be retrieved either, so neither is linked here.

None of the above is a finding. The charges are accusations that no court has tested, no plea has been reported, and no response from Freeman or from anyone acting for him is available to this publication. The State Attorney has not yet filed the charging document that determines which counts are pursued.

The sheriff's office says the same thing on the front of the database itself. Its records reflect the circumstances of an arrest and the information available at the time, have no connection to a finding of guilt or innocence or to an acquittal or dismissal, and do not reflect the final disposition of any charge. It directs readers to leeclerk.org for dispositions.