“Pedo Rambling:” Newberry Man Arrested for Over Two Dozen Online Child Sexual Abuse Charges

Friday afternoon, Alachua County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Cameron Scott Hickey, 28, on a warrant for nearly three dozen online child sexual abuse charges. 

Hickey faces a count of using a two-way communications device to facilitate a felony and four counts of online child solicitation, two of which have an enhancement for age misrepresentation. He faces several more counts of harmful communication and showing obscene material to minors, adding up to a total of 35 charges. 

If found guilty on all charges, Hickey could face up to 195 years in prison. Each of his third-degree felonies carries a five-year maximum, while his second-degree felonies carry 15-year maximums. 

On March 27, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received an investigative lead on child exploitation, (otherwise known as a Cybertip), from Discord regarding the user “Spectre01597,” who was later identified by police as Hickey. The case was assigned to Det. Josh Dawson.

The police report shows Hickey engaged in a conversation with the victim and was aware of her age. The chats show that Hickey told her he would give her money for a phone in exchange for nude photos. 

When the victim asked Hickey if he had sent the money, he replied, “You have to give me some time to set it up cause it has to connect to my bank and it's super annoying… It takes 3-5 business days… I live in Mississippi it would be faster to drive to you and hand you the money.”

According to court records, Hickey’s address is registered to Newberry, Florida, not Mississippi.

The victim offered to make a Patreon using false information and Hickey replied, “That could work lol. How much do I owe you anyways. I'm not even sure what I bought…”

The victim described the photos and video she took and asked for as much money as Hickey could help with. Hickey told her it “depends” on “how good the stuff turns out then.” Hickey went on to say that he could buy the victim a phone but for “that amount of money” he would want “the real thing.” 

Dawson located an additional lead from Discord regarding the user “Mesugakitara” dating back to September 2025. The personal information of “Mesugakitara” matched that of “Spectre01597;” both accounts are linked to Hickey’s phone number. 

Dawson reported, “The reported conversation showed the user mesugakitara asking another user for a picture of themselves. Mesugakitara also used the term ‘drooling’ over the other user's picture. There was no age discussed during the communications; however, the user claimed to be under 5 feet tall. The communications showed a pattern of soliciting images from females and one a known child. Based on my training and experience, people who solicit children for images and would be willing to pay for them normally do not only speak to one child. I requested the account content for ‘spectre 10597’ from the date of creation until the report was made to NCMEC to ensure there are no other victims of this user.”

As the investigation continued, Dawson accessed a third Cybertip that was also linked to “Spectre01597.” 

"Its just more pedo rambling and thirsting about underage girls,” wrote Hickey. “Isn't it so hot that's its illegal, like imagine getting to corrupt a super underage girl and turning her into a sex addicted slut." Attempting to rationalize his statements, Hickey said, “back in Jesus' day people were marrying 14 year olds and they were fucking girls way younger than that." Hickey said that Jesus “hopefully doesn't care” when speaking about his desire to sexually abuse children.

"I conducted OSINT (open-source intelligence of publicly available information) searches of the phone number,” reported Dawson. The search yielded a Venmo account to a Cameron Hickey (username- camshickey, personal account), a Microsoft Teams account to a Cam Hickey/ and a Facebook account to Cameron Hickey... The Facebook account was set to private.” 

On June 24, ACSO served a search warrant at Hickey’s residence and made contact with him. Hickey invoked his right to remain silent. 

Sgt. Daniel Qualman told Dawson that Hickey implemented security and privacy measures when using the internet, making data extraction difficult. 

Dawson made contact with Hickey’s family member, who owned or rented the residence and allowed Hickey to stay with her. She said Hickey had a degree in IT and had not been employed for some time. She did not know how frequently Hickey used chat applications. When asked about Hickey’s phone number, she confirmed he changed it in May from the number linked to the Cybertips to a 352 number. 

Dawson asked Hickey’s family member if he was dating anyone. She said he was “talking” to a woman but did not know who she was, describing Hickey as quiet about the matter and private. 

The family member said Hickey was often up later and that it wasn’t uncommon for him to come home in the AM hours. She said he’d often go on his computer after waking up or watch television. She said he would go to the gym or hang out with friends in the evening. The family member confirmed that Hickey went to Crunch Fitness. 

Another family member told police that Hickey said he changed his phone number because he believed having a local 352 number would help his resume.  

On June 25, Qualman got back to Dawson about the data extraction and confirmed it was limited but they yielded some Snapchat account information and messages. 

Data from the Snapchat account showed Hickey’s username was “cam247673.” Hickey used an email address containing the statement, “I hate Muslims so much [laughing my ass off (lmao)].” 

At least six of the chats in the captured data showed Hickey engaging in sexually charged conversations with users who identified themselves as children between 12 and 14 years old. 

The chats show Hickey fantasizing about sexually abusing children as young as seven and eight years old. Hickey led at least one of the victims to believe he was 13, later claiming to be 17 after saying he was worried about telling her his age. 

When speaking to a user identified as a 12-year-old girl, Hickey (who is 27-years-old) said that he likes the “age gap” and that “12 and 27 sounds soo good tho.” The victim sent a media file that was not captured in the data extraction, to which Hickey replied that he was in the “gym shower getting hard to that.” 

When speaking to a user identified as a 14-year-old girl, multiple files were shared between her and Hickey. Hickey responded in a sexual manner afterwards. Hickey called the “risk of getting caught” a “turn on.” The victim said she “would be dead” if her mother found out, to which Hickey replied, “I’d be in prison.” 

“These conversations show that Cameron knows that his actions are illegal and that he could face prison time,” reported Dawson. 

In July, police obtained further information on the Snapchat account, identifying the files in question as child sexual abuse material.

The data extraction also yielded images of Hickey’s face and driver’s license. Police located multiple images of Hickey that were also on his Snapchat account, one of which he took in his underwear. 

In one of the chats, Hickey speaks about enjoying “loli,” which the police report describes as “hand drawn/anime that depicts girls or young women who appear underage…” 

Hickey said that loli is “literally” his “favorite,” before asking the child “what site” she normally uses. Hickey went on to send her hentai/loli hyperlinks, short videos (gifs) and well over a dozen images.  

Hickey told the victim she was a “little loli looking,” indicating he knew she was a child from the start of their interaction. Hickey acknowledged the victim was “only 14” and that he was “thirsting over” her. 

As the investigation continued, police learned that the “Mesugakitara” Discord had the same images of Hickey on the “Spectre01597” Discord account and the “cam247673” Snapchat account. 

In another chat, Hickey told the victim to put on “thigh high socks” and that he would be “the stranger danger.” Hickey solicited an image from her before she confirmed she was 15, to which Hickey told her that “age gaps are hot.” The victim said she was in the EU, to which Hickey replied that he’d fly to Europe to “grope” her clothing.  

In the chat where Hickey claimed to be 17, the victim told him to not turn into a “pred” (slang for child sexual predator) after he expressed attraction to the purported four-year age gap (in reality 15 years). Hickey replied, “How can you blame me,” before blaming the victim for putting “ideas” in his “head.” Hickey tried to convince the victim to send an image of herself before engaging in more sexually charged conversation. 

The victim talked about stumbling across porn online when she was just six-years-old, leading Hickey to speak about his sexual relationship with his ex-girlfriend. The victim asked for more information, and Hickey played as though he was reluctant to tell her. The victim told Hickey that he had to tell her because he was 17 and she was 13, further stating she did not “judge” him for being a “pred.” 

Hickey then went into grotesque detail about past sexual encounters, indicating that his ex had him “dress up as a femboy cat maid” and the “tail was a buttplug.” Hickey made numerous further statements to the child about his sexual encounters. 

Hickey went on to tell the victim he was “in love” and that he doesn’t care if “that’s pred af” as he is “so down bad.” 

As the conversation continued, Hickey told the victim he was turned on at the thought of her being younger than 13. 

The victim talked about being groomed by another 17-year-old last year, to which Hickey said that’s “hot af.” Hickey asked what grooming was, and the victim sent a screenshot from Google defining grooming as a predatory crime, stating, “This meaning refers to the predatory actions of an abuser who manipulates a victim to gain their trust for the purpose of sexual abuse or exploitation.”

Hickey claimed that he wasn’t exploiting the victim but acknowledged that he masturbated during their conversation. 

The victim sent Hickey an image that was not captured in the return, which he said he was “mentally undressing.” 

Hickey sent the victim a picture that was not captured in the return, but based on the victim’s statements it’s clear he sent a picture of his genitalia. 

Hickey went on to say, “Fuck the law… It’s hotter if it's illegal. Police are gonna have to pull me out of that 13-year-old pussy [for real].”

“Within that 5-hour conversation, Cameron exposed the child to numerous descriptions of different sex acts, sexual acts that he had done, sexual acts he wanted to do to the 13-year-old child and an image of his penis,” reported Dawson. “Throughout that conversation, the child and Cameron both identified the fact [she] was a 13-year-old. He lied about his age being 17, instead of 27… Cameron engaged in the patterned behavior of contacting people he believed to be minors, commonly ages 12-14 years old. While engaged in communications with the children, he would describe sexual acts that he wished to do to them. Multiple times even talking about meeting with the child for sex. Cameron uploaded obscenity in the form of pornographic material and an image of his erect penis.”

The Alachua County Jail is holding Hickey without bond pending a pretrial detention motion from the prosecution.

Editor’s Notes: Due to the number of victims and confidentiality protections, it is difficult to differentiate each victim. There may be some overlap between victims and the incidents described.

Some quotes from the police report contain slight grammatical edits.