A former Florida Keys man sentenced to federal prison for child pornography last month was arrested this week by Monroe County police on gruesome charges that he sexually assaulted his own children, filmed several of those encounters and then distributed the images.
The alleged crimes took place on a sailboat where Eric Cadogan was staying, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. It was docked off a marina in the Middle Keys town of Marathon from 2019 until the 39-year-old returned to his home state of Wisconsin four years later.
According to investigators, his wife and five biological children were living on board with him.
Cadogan was arrested in December in Wisconsin by the FBI on charges of distributing child pornography following an operation in which he offered to sell him hundreds of images of children engaged in sexual activity. The man, who was chatting with him via an obscure app, turned out to be an undercover agent.
In some of the explicit images of children, a man was wearing a bracelet that officers found in Cadogan’s bedroom in the Wisconsin home where he was arrested.
He pleaded guilty to those charges in June and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
Earlier this year, the sheriff’s office opened its own investigation after it was revealed during the federal investigation that his wife, Kia Lynn Cadogan, told FBI agents that she had molested one of the couple’s young children.
Officers arrested a 34-year-old woman in January. Her case on multiple counts of aggravated child abuse and sexual assault of a child is ongoing as she remains in the county jail on $550,000 bail.
On Tuesday, the sheriff’s office announced that it had arrested Eric Cadogan on multiple felony charges, including incest, sexual assault, cruelty to children, contributing to the delinquency of a child and lewd and lascivious behavior toward a child.
“I, along with the men and women of the Sheriff’s Office, are committed to protecting the most vulnerable among us: our children,” Sheriff Rick Ramsay said in a statement. “I want to commend the Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes detectives and our law enforcement partners who worked to ensure these two suspects were brought to justice.”
The chilling probable cause affidavit details multiple instances where Eric Cadogan raped his children, encouraged them to engage in sexual acts with each other, and filmed the crimes on his cell phone.
A judge this week ordered Cadogan held in jail on $2.2 million bail.
There was no immediate word on legal representation for the two Cadogan children. Authorities did not immediately respond to questions about the children’s whereabouts.
Kia Cadogan told FBI agents in December that Eric forced her to abuse their child. But Ramsay told the Herald when detectives arrested her in January that he didn’t believe her story.
While living in the Keys, Ramsay said she had ample opportunity to report the heinous acts that allegedly took place aboard the vessel as she traveled to and from the family’s boat.
“Our job is to protect people. If people come forward, they are protected,” Ramsay said at the time. “She was also an accomplice.”
