ORLANDO, Fla. — Walt Disney World on Tuesday denied it employed a 24-year-old Osceola County child-porn suspect who claimed to be a theme-park cast member.

  • Feds identified suspect as worker at major Orlando-area theme park
  • Suspect listed his employer as Disney World on jail paperwork
  • Investigators said they linked mass upload of child porn to Bishop

After investigators told Nicholas James Bishop he was a child-porn suspect, the Kissimmee man said he was using the illegal images to hunt online for pedophiles, federal prosecutors say.

“He later admitted that he was searching for and trading child pornography due to personal interest,” a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida said. “He did not have any plans to refer anyone to law enforcement, but he wanted to.”

Bishop works at a “major theme park in the Orlando area frequented by children,” a criminal complaint said. Bishop's place of employment was listed as "Main Street Operations" for Walt Disney World in a Seminole County Sheriff's booking report. “His job is crowd control, which brings him in contact with children.”

Bishop listed "Walt Disney" as his employer on jail paperwork, but Walt Disney World on Tuesday denied it employed him.

Erica Ettori, Walt Disney World Director of Communications, on Tuesday told Spectrum News 13 in an email that “he does not work for the company.”

Bishop lived at a home on Honeywood Drive in Kissimmee co-owned by Earl Henry Massy III, who said in a phone interview Tuesday that Bishop worked at Disney for about a year before his arrest.

“He worked there in crowd control,” said Massy, who has known Bishop since he and his son met in kindergarten. Massy didn’t know about the child-porn allegations until Bishop’s arrest.

Bishop cooperated with investigators, saying he is aroused by child porn. He also admitted he somehow stole a 6-year-old’s underwear from another, unidentified state.

“He stated he took the panties due to a sexual curiosity in this child,” the complaint said. “He stated that he had routine access to this child but denied sexually abusing the child.”

He said he had access to another 6- to 7-year-old girl in another state.

Several agencies and online businesses helped investigators zero in on Bishop, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Homeland Security in Orlando, Kik Messenger, and Facebook. Google alerted federal officials to the upload of more than 200 files of suspected child porn from February 8, 2019 and July 29, 2019. An investigator determined the images were of girls from toddlers to 12-year-olds. Investigators linked the computer that uploaded the images to Bishop, the complaint said. Bishop was taken into custody Friday and waived his right to a detention hearing in Orlando federal court.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory J. Kelly on Friday ordered Bishop to be held until his trial. Bishop is behind bars at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Sanford.