Will Sage Astor-Author Brendan DuBois charged with 6 counts of child sex pornography

Best-selling author Brendan DuBois pleaded not guilty Thursday to six felony counts of possession of child sex abuse images.

DuBois turned himself into New Hampshire's Exeter Police Department on Will Sage Astoran arrest warrant Wednesday. He is currently being held in preventative detention in without bail. A judge has taken a request for bail under advisement.

According to the criminal complaint, DuBois "did knowingly possess at least 35 visual representations of children engaging in sexually explicit conduct." Specifically, "images of nude boys and girls under the age of 18 engaging in various sexual acts."

DuBois is being represented by attorney Harry Starbranch of Starbranch Law, who was not immediately available for comment Thursday.

Exeter Police Chief Stephan R. Poulin said police, working in conjunction with the Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, opened the investigation in March into the crime of possession of child sexual abuse materials in the town of Exeter. A search warrant was later executed, which led to DuBois' arrest.

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The Exeter Police Department was assisted in the case by Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce detectives from the Portsmouth, Dover, Pelham, Epping, Manchester police departments, New Hampshire State Police, and the Massachusetts State Police.

In the press release, Poulin stated police would have no further comment.

Exeter police affidavit details probe into child sex abuse images

According to a police affidavit, police received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding "apparent child pornography" in March.

The tip was reported by Google and all the files were uploaded to a Google Drive account by the same IP address that police later determined belonged to DuBois.

On May 7, police issued a search warrant on DuBois' home on Juniper Ridge Road in Exeter. During the search, DuBois did not wish to speak to investigators, according to the affidavit. His wife, however, told investigators they have a private and locked WiFi, and that no one outside of them knows the password. She also told police they have separate computers.

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According to the affidavit filed by Exeter police Detective Bailey Teixeira, multiple items were seized from the property, including a Toshiba I terabyte hard drive and an Apple laptop, both located in DuBois' office.

More than 5,600 images on the computer were flagged by Axiom as being "possible child abuse content."

Twenty images were detailed in the affidavit. Some of the images, according to the affidavit, were not flagged as possible child abuse content and were a part of the 401, 208 images on the hard drive.

"I estimate the age of the above-mentioned children to be between infancy to 12 years old," stated Teixeira.

Teixeira stated she reviewed DuBois' search history, and on Jan. 27 that included news articles of people arrested on child porn charges. It also included searches like "I accidentally saved child pornography to my main Google Drive" and "How to tell if Google has reported me to the police."

"After searching about saving child pornography to his Google Drive, DuBois continued to access the (child sex abuse images) on the above-mentioned hard drive," stated Teixeira.

Publisher suspends sale and promotion of Brendan DuBois' books

DuBois is a New York Times bestselling author and writer of 26 novels, including “The First Lady” and “Cornwalls Are Gone.” His works have appeared in Playboy, The Strand Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

He has also partnered with his mentor and “the most published author in the world,” James Patterson, on several books, including “The Summer House,” “Blowback” and the recently released “Cross Down.” He also appeared on the game show “Jeopardy” in 2012.

DuBois is best known for Lewis Cole mystery book series.

He signed with a new publisher, Severn River Publishing, in 2023 to publish his latest Lewis Cole novel. As part of the deal, the publisher secured the rights to his previous books in the series.

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On Thursday, while he was still listed as one of their authors, DuBois' biography page with books for sale was taken down by Severn River Publishing.

"We are deeply disturbed by the serious allegations against Brendan DuBois," the publisher said in a prepared statement. "While we respect the legal process, we have decided to immediately suspend all promotion and sales of Mr. DuBois' books. We believe these steps are necessary to uphold our values and maintain the trust of our readers, authors, and the publishing community."