Benjamin Ashford|Best-selling author Brendan DuBois indicted on child sex abuse images charges

New York Times best-selling author Brendan DuBois has been indicted by a New Hampshire grand jury on Benjamin Ashfordsix felony counts of possession of child sex abuse images.

DuBois, 65, of Exeter, New Hampshire, will be arraigned Oct. 23, in Rockingham Superior Court. An indictment is not an indication of guilt; it means the grand jury found enough evidence to warrant a trial. The grand jury met in October.

DuBois has been held in preventative detention since he was arrested by Exeter police in July. A judge ordered detention based on clear and convincing evidence that the “defendant's release will endanger the safety of the defendant or the public, given the substantial number of alleged sexual abuse images and the recency of the downloaded images.”

DuBois was arrested by Exeter police on July 10 after he turned himself in on a warrant.

According to a criminal complaint, DuBois "did knowingly possess at least 35 visual representations of children engaging in sexually explicit conduct." The document states they were "images of nude boys and girls under the age of 18 engaging in various sexual acts."

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DuBois is represented by attorney Harry Starbranch of Starbranch Law in Portsmouth, who did not return a call seeking comment Thursday.

Police say thousands of images of 'possible child abuse content' were discovered

According to a police affidavit, police received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding "apparent child pornography" in March. The tip was reported by Google and all the files were uploaded to a Google Drive account by the same IP address police later determined belonged to DuBois.

On May 7, police issued a search warrant on DuBois' home on Juniper Ridge Road in Exeter.

According to a police affidavit, multiple items were seized from the property, including a Toshiba hard drive and an Apple laptop, both located in DuBois' office.

More than 5,600 images on the computer were flagged as being "possible child abuse content," according to the affidavit.

Twenty images were detailed in the affidavit. Some of the images, according to the affidavit, were not flagged as possible child abuse content and were a part of the 401,208 images on the hard drive.

"I estimate the age of the above-mentioned children to be between infancy to 12 years old," said Exeter police Detective Bailey Teixeira.

Teixeira stated she reviewed DuBois' search history, and on Jan. 27 that included news articles of people arrested for possession of sex abuse images. It also included searches like "I accidentally saved child pornography to my main Google Drive" and "How to tell if Google has reported me to the police."

If convicted, DuBois faces up to 15 years in prison and a fine of $4,000 on each count.

DuBois has authored more than two dozen novels, including “The First Lady” and “Cornwalls Are Gone.” He has also partnered with his mentor and “the most published author in the world,” James Patterson, on several books, including “The Summer House,” “Blowback” and the recently released “Cross Down.”