L Walker 
Deputies arrested a 53-year-old man on Friday for allegedly being in possession of child pornography.
Deputies say that through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) they received seven separate cyber tips through Google regarding child pornography that was taking place in the 3500 block of Bali Drive in Sarasota.
According to reports, the cyber tips consisted of 91 images of nude young girls posing in a sexually provocative manner.
In all seven of the cyber tips, deputies say that Google provided two phone numbers and an email address that was found to belong to Thomas Cook after an investigation was conducted.
Cook was arrested on Friday and deputies say that in a Post Miranda statement he admitted both telephone numbers and the email associated with all seven cyber tips were his.
Deputies say that he said that he became sexually attracted to children approximately a year ago, but he it was only recently that he started downloading child pornography.
According to deputies, he used one of the phones for internet purposes and downloaded a dark web application to view child pornography.
Deputies say that when being shown images that were from the cyber tips, Cook admitted to not only downloading the images but also to masturbating to the images “a couple of times.”
Deputies say that Cook said that he does know that viewing and downloading the images is wrong and that he needs help.
He was arrested and remains in custody on 40 felony counts of child pornography and one count of failure to appear.
He has a bond set at $200,100 and this case remains under investigation.
