Registered sexual predator arrested on child porn charges

A 74-year-old registered sexual predator from Hollywood has been arrested for possession of videos and images showing children as young as 4 being bound and raped, court records say.

Hollywood police began investigating Theodore Dudash, of 3905 Hayes Street, after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notified a South Florida task force on internet crimes against children about a Dropbox account containing pornographic videos involving children between the ages of 4 and 13. A Dropbox employee alerted the center about the videos.

That Dropbox account, police in Hollywood allege, was registered to Theodore Dudash.

More than 30 images and videos were found on his laptop, court records say. Dudash admitted they were in his account and on his laptop. He was arrested Tuesday on 11 child pornography changes.

Dudash is no stranger to Hollywood Police. The former long-time volunteer coach for a Hollywood youth softball league was arrested in 2002 after a 12-year-old girl on his team said Dudash groped her twice and exposed himself.

Dudash was convicted, deemed a sexual predator and ordered to spend the next 90 weekends in a Broward County jail. He was placed on probation until 2015. As a predator, Dudash is required to check in regularly with the Hollywood Police Department.

That arrest in 2002 though was not Dudash’s first sexual offense involving youths.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in 2002 that Dudash had been a volunteer youth softball coach for more than eight years even though he was was convicted in 1990 of a indecent sexual assault against a child charge. At the time the city of Hollywood did not conduct background check on volunteer coaches for independent leagues that use city-owned ball fields. Dudash’s arrest in 2002 changed that, expanding the criteria for background checks.

In this week’s case, bond was set at $15,000 for each of the 11 charges. As of Thursday afternoon, Dudash remained in the Broward County jail.