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… While Cancela denied possessing any such material, detectives said they found “files depicting child pornography with pre-pubescent victims.”

However, a lawsuit filed by Cancela and his wife against Judd states that no evidence of child pornography was found during a search warrant on the couple’s property. Their children also told investigators that they had never been touched inappropriately,

The lawsuit says that Cancela and his family had stopped using the phone number suspected in the investigation in 2018 — around a year before deputies received the NCMEC’s tips about the child pornography case.

During the search, Deputy Sean Jones demanded Cancela provide a passcode to unlock his and his wife’s cell phones, but after Cancela asked to call his lawyer first to confirm it was OK to do so, Jones decided to arrest Cancela on the child pornography charges, the lawsuit says.

Following the arrest, Judd publicly spoke about the operation, distributing Cancela’s name and address to local media. Cancela was put on suicide watch while in jail over the accusations, the lawsuit claims.

Even after being released from jail, Cancela was not allowed to see his wife and children, nor was he allowed to live under the same roof, according to the lawsuit.

Court records show that the case was dismissed, and the charges against Cancela were ultimately dropped in October 2022. …