Gloucester News

Ex- Gloucester Cop Charged with Child Pornography Possession

Reporter Kimberly Sweeney

65-year-old William Ridgway Gibbs of James City County was recently charged with over 10 counts of dealing with child pornography.

Gibbs was a police officer for 35 years, starting in 1984. He was promoted to an investigator in 1987, only three years later. He was good at his job, and generally well-liked.

He received high praise in 2011 for his work as a sworn deputized agent with the FBI Peninsula Innocent Images Task Force and the SOVA Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, two organizations that work to fight sex crimes against children. Without Gibbs, there wouldn’t have been a conviction or any sort of punishment for the criminal, and it was thanks to him that justice was served.

“[Gibbs] was the first James City County investigator to develop a child pornography case and take it before a Federal Grand Jury,” according to the website.

However, James City County Police Department had recently received tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that pornographic images of children were illegally being uploaded from Gibb’s address. Officers investigated the tips and executed a search warrant on Gibbs' home in September 2019. There, they confirmed pornographic images were being uploaded to an external cloud storage belonging to Gibbs. All were of children.

The 65 year-old was charged with 10 counts of possession, reproduction, solicitation, and facilitation of child pornography. He was charged with two counts of possession, reproduction, solicitation, and facilitation of child pornography and eight counts of possession, reproduction, solicitation, and facilitation of child pornography as a second or subsequent offense. The officers said the counts span from January 1, 2015 through September 2019, well into the height of Gibbs’ career.

“Due to the possible offender being a James City County Police Department investigator, we requested Gloucester County Sheriff’s Department to conduct a criminal investigation,” said Deputy Chief Steve Rubino, a spokesman for the James City County Police Department

Gibbs, in his time as a police officer, was an investigator of criminals who dealt with child pornography. It’s ironic, how he now joins the criminals he once locked away.

“As a Department, we work very hard to build and maintain trust in our community, and we will continue to work with our citizenry to provide the best police services possible,” Rubino said. “We have done our best to ensure that these allegations are investigated properly, and we will be as transparent as possible throughout the coming weeks and months.”

“It’s really sad that an authoritative figure was corrupted like that. It makes you doubt who you can really trust,” says junior Daniel Walsh at Gloucester High School.

Gibbs submitted his letter of resignation September 14, and his last day of employment was September 30. He is currently being held in the Gloucester County Jail without bail and is facing up to 20 years for each charge.