A Florida attorney who gained national prominence for representing victims of sexual abuse has been arrested for allegedly downloading child porn to his computer.
The FBI executed a search warrant at the West Palm Beach apartment of Michael Thomas Dolce, 53, on March 15 – breaking down his door after he didn’t respond, the Miami Herald reported.
The agents caught him actively downloading images onto his Samsung laptop, according to the news outlet.
Prosecutors said the lawyer amassed over 2,000 child porn photos and videos in his electronic devices, including multiple images of prepubescent girls as young as 5 in “varying states of undress.”
Dolce was a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll in West Palm Beach Gardens, where he led the company’s sexual abuse, sex trafficking and domestic violence team, according to a since-deleted page on the law firm’s website.
“The firm is stunned and saddened by these appalling allegations. Michael Dolce was terminated and is no longer affiliated with the firm,” the company said in a statement to the Herald.
“We are focused on attending to the needs of our clients and staff, and continuing to cooperate fully with the investigation,” it added.
Dolce allegedly used peer-to-peer software to download the images, WPBF reported.
“One sub-folder, titled ‘sweetie,’ featured an addition[al] sub-folder titled ‘Sweet-Pedo Stars,’ which featured child erotica and child pornography images of a single prepubescent minor female victim with the added watermark ‘PEDO STARs,’” the feds said, Law and Crime reported.
Dolce has been interviewed many times across the country about child sex abuse and told WPBF he also was a victim of sexual abuse when he was about 7 years old.
The attorney, who graduated from Stetson University College of Law in 1994, also advocated for the repeal of all statutes of limitations in child sexual battery cases.
His attorney, Leonard Scott Feuer, didn’t immediately respond to the Herald’s request for comment.
Dolce’s first formal court appearance is scheduled for April 13 on the child porn possession charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars.