Palm Coast Sex Offender Rejects Plea Deal and Seeks Trial in New Child Abuse Imagery Case

A single image of what is believed to be a child, unclothed, could send Palm Coast resident Gary Durso, 62, a registered sex offender, to prison for five years. He is declining a plea that would have him imprisoned for 18 months. 

“Obviously the court knows that he’s a little more experienced than the average person, given that he’s gone through the system before,” his attorney, James Smith, told Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols in a pre-trial hearing Wednesday. “He wanted me to convey that this is not a game on his part to try to game the system and get a better offer. He maintains his innocence and wants to take his case to trial.”

Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark is offering 18 months in prison followed by 32 months on sex-offender probation, which carries strict rules. 

Durso was not in court. He’d been granted a waiver. Nichols said she would require Durso to be in front of her for docket sounding on Feb. 4, the last hearing before trial, and will ask him to make a counter-offer. The judge said she would not order a jury just yet, pushing the trial to March. “I just want to get everything on the record that he’s that he’s personally declining the offer, that he wishes to go to trial, and that he declines to make any counter offers,” the judge said.  

The judge had asked if the entire case revolved around one image. Clark said it did. “He’s a prior sex offender though,” she said. 

Fourteen years ago Durso was arrested on a charge of traveling from Palm Coast to meet a minor for sex in Osceola County after connecting on the internet. Undercover deputies from the Osceola Sheriff’s Office posed as minors in a sting operation.

Durso at the time was living on Edward Drive and had a company called Master Tech Auto and Truck Repair. He was sentenced to a year and nine months in prison, which he served. He returned to the house he bought with his wife in 2012 on Ellsworth Drive in Palm Coast, where he has lived since, maintaining, as required, his sex-offender registration, with no new run-ins with the law. Until last May. 

That month, Flickr, the photo-storage and sharing site, sent a so-called cyber-tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) that an image titled by the crude description of its content had been uploaded on May 6. The image “depicted a pre-pubescent female, fully nude,” and explicitly revealing the child’s private parts, according to a Flagler County Sheriff’s detective’s report. 

The detective traced the Flickr account to Durso at his Palm Coast address, and subpoenaed AT&T and Flickr for information, receiving from Flickr two zip files associated with the account and containing “numerous pornographic images,” including the image classified as child sexual abuse material. Further investigation revealed that the child in the picture had been previously identified as a victim by law enforcement, the abusive picture being part of an identified series. 

Durso was served with a search warrant on Sept. 12, when he was also interviewed by the detective. He told the detective that he runs a “free photoshoot” hobby through Craigslist, the classified ad website, and posts to Flickr. He confirmed having the account flagged by authorities. 

He said he’d been “contacted on craigslist to conduct photoshoots by females who are under the age of 18 and has been sent Child Sexual Abuse Material by these unknown persons,” according to the report. He confirmed downloading the image in question and uploading it to Flickr, and was placed under arrest. He posted bail on $15,000 bond two weeks later.