Man faces 21 child pornography felonies, video ‘appears to be self-produced,’ investigators say

LAKE CITY, Fla. – It took well over a year to make an arrest in this disturbing case, despite the evidence authorities said they had.

This story started back on June 22, 2023, when the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office in Florida got a cyber tip “in reference to child sexual abuse material” from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

On Aug. 15, 2023, a detective was assigned the case, and court documents said, “The tip produced a total of one uploaded file.”

They also said, “The video depicts a white female approximately 13-15 years of age…” along with a description of the content.

And, the electronic service provider that reported the tip identified the suspect as Steven Paul Shaffer of Lake City, and it provided his phone number.

What happened with that information for more than a year, for both Shaffer and investigators, was not reported in the affidavit.

Separately, on Sept. 13, 2024, a sheriff’s deputy got word of a different crime. It was “a sexual offense call involving a juvenile victim, where Steven Shaffer was named as the suspect,” the agency reported.

Almost two months after that, on Nov. 8, a different detective “interviewed the juvenile victim who stated that while living with Shaffer, she slept in the bed with him,” and he committed various sex crimes with the girl “over an undetermined period of time.”

Application for Criminal Indigent Status, Dec. 5, 2024 by Lenny Cohen on Scribd

The girl’s relationship with Shaffer was not disclosed. Neither was her age. Eventually, he wrote about having one dependent on his Application for Criminal Indigent Status, so he’d be eligible for a public defender. The one dependent was not a child not living at home, a working spouse, or himself.

But on Nov. 8, the detective asked the girl’s mother for Shaffer’s phone number and the one she gave was the same number given by the electronic service provider more than a year earlier.

“After the interview,” the report continued, “[the detective] recognized Shaffer’s name and ran a de-confliction check through the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force database, where he located several more cyber tips naming Shaffer as a suspect for child pornography cases, and listed his phone number as” the same.

The detective “looked at these prior tips and the video/picture files contained therein observed that the juvenile victim in the above report, and the juveniles in the suspected child pornography, have similar features such as hair color, stature, and age.”

At this point, a sergeant got a search warrant for information on the phone number, but the internet provider responded in an email that the number had been changed on Jan. 20, 2024. No reason was given.

Authorities repeated the process and learned Shaffer was the account owner for the new number.

They also reported finding “screenshots of a pay stub form from 2023 with Steven Shaffer’s name, as well as a photograph of his Florida driver’s license,” from his workplace. “There was an addition[al] pay stub form with Steven P. Schaffer[’s] name from 1/19/2024 with an address” in Lake City.

After the link, they reported finding a folder that “contained six individual video files. The first file was … the video from the original cyber tip,” and investigators described it again.

They described the other five files differently, writing each “appears to be self-produced,” each showing “a white female,” approximately 10-12 years old, in various stages of undress.

Finally, there were three other folders. Each contained a single video. One reportedly “depicts an adult male wearing a black mask and blue shirt,” and “the female appears to be approximately 7-8 years old.” The other two were reportedly similar to the earlier ones, showing “the same female,” in scenes that appeared “to be self-produced.”

The last folder also reportedly contained “two separate images of the same female” from some of the videos, “fully nude.”

Shaffer, 53, was arrested at his home on a warrant on Dec. 5. He’s charged with 10 counts of possession of child pornography, 10 counts of transmitting child pornography, and one count of child exploitation by computer. All 21 counts are felonies.

First Appearance Order, Dec. 6, 2024 by Lenny Cohen on Scribd

His bond was set at $150,000 for each felony, and Shaffer has not been released from jail.

If that should happen, the judge ordered him to “have no contact with any minors,” “not go within 500 feet of their residence,” or “500 feet of any school/daycare;” also, to “not use or possess any electronic device capable of accessing the internet.”

Shaffer faced a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor in 2016. Prosecutors wrote that he dropped off and left a girl “at Walmart by herself, without supervision, while knowing there was an ongoing investigation into [her] whereabouts.”

According to the affidavit, the girl’s mother said the 7th grader “did not come home from school,” and “this has not happened before,” but later “received information [the girl] was with her boyfriend.”

The investigation found Shaffer “later picked them up” and “they drove to Steven’s home,” “hung out there for a while,” and “went to eat at Taco Bell.”

Then, the girl’s mother called, “asking about her, and they knew deputies were looking for her, they left the restaurant and traveled to Walmart.”

Shaffer reportedly told a deputy “all he knew was ‘she was scared of her parents,’ [and] “could not elaborate further.”

He was charged because “he could have simply contacted her parents of law enforcement.” Any information on their relationship was redacted from the affidavit.

Administrative Nolle Prosequi Code “F,” Dec. 2, 2016 by Lenny Cohen on Scribd

Less than a year later, Shaffer had “successfully completed the pre-trial diversion program” he agreed to, so prosecutors decided not to pursue the charge.