Miami man’s collection of child rape videos showed victims as young as 1, police say

MIAMI – Police arrested a Miami man Wednesday on more than a dozen felony charges after they said he uploaded a number of child sexual abuse videos to the messaging app Kik.

According to an arrest report from the Miami Police Department, the investigation into Willie James Banks Jr. began in July after the application flagged 61 files of child sexual abuse material.

In the report, detectives described more than a dozen disturbing files they said the 34-year-old Overtown resident had in his possession. The 15 videos depicted girls between the ages of 1 and 9 being raped or otherwise sexually abused by men, police said.

Police executed a search warrant Wednesday at Banks’ residence on Northwest 13th Street, near Frederick Douglass Elementary School, and took him into custody.

Authorities said Banks admitted to creating the Kik account, but denied uploading child sexual abuse material.

Banks, who faces 15 charges of possessing child sexual abuse material, was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $75,000 bond as of Thursday morning.