Federal authorities arrested former ABC News journalist James Gordon Meek on Tuesday on charges related to possession of child pornography.

Federal officials told reporters that Meek was taken into custody on Tuesday night and charged with transportation of child pornography. He could face a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted. Per NBC News:

Meek abruptly resigned from ABC last year following a raid of his home in April.

The investigation began in March 2021 when Dropbox filed a tip with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, claiming a user uploaded videos with its service that “were later confirmed by law enforcement to contain child pornography,” according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

Investigators traced the account, with the user name “James Meek,” to the suspect’s home in Arlington, the complaint alleged.

The Justice Department said in a statement that Meek’s devices contained disturbing images that depicted children “engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and multiple chat conversations with users engaged in sexually explicit conversations where the participants expressed enthusiasm for the sexual abuse of children.”

Meek also allegedly used social media platforms to chat online with minors and manipulate them into sending him sexually explicit images of themselves. Authorities also allegedly discovered an external hard drive belonging to Meeks that had a total of 58 images related to child pornography. His iPhone 6 also allegedly had 34 images and videos of child pornography.

As Breitbart News previously reported, Meeks seemed to have disappeared last year after the FBI raided his home for child pornography. Prior to his raid and arrest, Meeks enjoyed a prestigious career as a journalist, especially on stories related to national security.

“During Meek’s lengthy career as a journalist, he broke multiple high-profile stories about national security and terrorism,” Breitbart News noted. “Notably, Meek produced the Hulu documentary 3212 Un-Redacted, which focused on his reports about a 2017 ISIS ambush in Niger that left four Green Berets dead.”

Paul Roland Bois joined Breitbart News in 2021 after a four-year run at The Daily Wire. He also directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which will soon be available on Amazon and Google Play. Follow him on Twitter @DirectorRoland or on Instagram @Exemplumfilm.