This past Thursday, June 9, 2022, the criminal complaint charging possession of explicit images of minors that had been filed against Charles Gilbride of Ramsey was dismissed in the Bergen County Superior Court.
In a press release from Foy & Seplowitz LLC, the law firm representing Mr. Gilbride, it was announced that he was vindicated after it was determined that he was not responsible for the illicit depictions that were uploaded into an account under his name by another individual based in Queens, New York.
On December 2, 2021, Mr. Gilbride was arrested in the early morning hours by members of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Cyber Crimes Unit after they executed a search warrant at his residence in Ramsey.
Mr. Gilbride was charged with possession of explicit images of minors. The press release about Mr. Gilbride’s arrest resulted in him being dismissed from his full-time employment as a plumber and his volunteer position as a lieutenant on the Ramsey Rescue Squad.
According to Foy & Seplowitz LLC, since his arrest, Mr. Gilbride has professed his innocence and rejected all plea offers from the Prosecutor’s Office.
He ultimately had to hire his own computer forensics expert, John Lucich of eForensix, LLC.
Foy & Seplowitz LLC stated that through the diligent work of Mr. Lucich and his team of forensic technicians, it was determined that the Dropbox account utilizing Mr. Gilbride’s name and email address was created by another individual based in Queens, New York.
Furthermore, the claim in the search warrant application that Mr. Gilbride accessed the Dropbox account at his residence in Ramsey turned out to be inaccurate.
Finally, a forensic analysis conducted by the Cyber Crimes Unit of all electronic devices seized from Mr. Gilbride resulted in a finding of no explicit images of minors, as asserted by Mr. Gilbride since being arrested and wrongfully accused of a crime he did not commit, Foy & Seplowitz LLC stated.
Foy & Seplowitz LLC said that after this exculpatory information came to light, the Prosecutor’s Office agreed to an outright dismissal of the criminal charge that was filed against Mr. Gilbride.
It turns out that Mr. Gilbride was himself the victim of a cybercrime committed by another individual utilizing Mr. Gilbride’s identity and email address.
Foy & Seplowitz LLC has said that Mr. Gilbride, who is not technologically savvy, was the victim of an online hack and urges all others to be weary of fraudulent activity on their accounts.