A resident of Polk City, Florida was arrested at the Port of Tampa on charges of possessing and transporting child pornography on the Margaritaville at Sea’s Islander, according to a local news station in Tampa.
James Oxley, age 52, boarded the Islander cruise ship, operated by Margaritaville at Sea, on December 17, 2025 for a five day cruise to ports in Mexico. Almost fifteen years earlier (April 2012), Oxley was found guilty in Orange County, Florida on three counts of possession of a photograph or picture showing the sexual performance by a child, in violation of Florida Statute 827.071(5). This conviction required Oxley to register as a sexual offender.
Oxley viewed pornographic images (both photographs and videos) of minors on his iPhone during the cruise. The criminal court file reveals that when Oxley was arrested at the end of the cruise, his iPhone contained approximately 2,041 images and 6 videos in a folder tilted “Recently Deleted,” only 17 of which were not child pornography or child erotica.
When the cruise ship returned to port and Oxley was disemarking, he was referred to a secondary inspection by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) due to Oxley’s status as a sex offender. While in secondary inspection, CBP Officers discovered Oxley was in possession of an iPhone 13. Oxley provided the passcode to his iPhone 13 to CBP. During an initial inspection, CBP Officers observed child pornography in the “Recently Deleted” folder. The officers determined that he tried to delete the images on December 21, 2024 while the cruise ship was at sea returning to port in Tampa, after visiting Progreso and Cozumel, Mexico.
A review of the federal court criminal file contained an affidavit from a Special Agent with the United States Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations who viewed Oxley’s phone. Of the numerous images, there were photographs of children between the ages of five and eight years old.
After being advised of and waiving his Miranda rights, Oxley told the agents that shortly before the cruise, he visited a Russian website that is “well known for hosting images and videos of child pornography and child erotica.” He also admitted that he began “saving images sporadically from this website since his prior conviction for child pornography in 2012.”
A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s for the Middle District of Florida indicated that Oxley also possessed AI generated images that depicted minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Oxley faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in federal prison for transporting child sex abuse material and up to 20 years in federal prison for the AI offenses and possession of images and videos of child exploitation.
Of interest, this particular cruise line, Margaritaville at Sea, apparently permits sex offenders to cruise without restrictions. Some cruise lines, particularly Carnival and Royal Caribbean, do not permit sexual offenders to cruise on their ships.
Anyone convicted of being a sexual offender must register and their status is readily available to the public. At the time of this cruise, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). FDLE had listed Oxley’s status as a sex offender and its online site had a flyer posted on its website (see below). Oxley’s status as a convicted sexual offender was also available on the National Sex Offender Public Website.
The fact that Oxley boarded the Islander cruise ship with literally thousands of sexually explicit images involving minors could easily have been avoided if Margaritaville at Sea simply had the same policy as Carnival and Royal Caribbean of reviewing the sex offender database. Considering that there are at least 750,000 registered sexual offenders in the U.S., it is long past time that all cruise lines adopt and enforce a ban against sexual offenders being allowed on cruise ships. Does anyone really want to go on a family cruise with a convicted sex offender with thousands of images of child pornography on his iPhone?
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January 22, 2025 Update:
Image credits: James Oxley mugshots – Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office via FOX13 and FDLE Sexual Offenders and Predators Search database; Tampa-Mexico cruise schematic – iCruise; Islander – Margaritaville at Sea.