Brendan DuBois, a best-selling author recognized by the New York Times, has been charged by a grand jury in New Hampshire with six felony counts regarding the possession of child sex abuse images.

DuBois, 65, who resides in Exeter, New Hampshire, is scheduled to appear in Rockingham Superior Court on October 23. Being indicted does not mean that DuBois is guilty; rather, it indicates that there is enough evidence for a trial, as concluded by the grand jury’s meeting in October.

He has been in preventative custody since his arrest by Exeter police in July, following a judge’s ruling that his release could pose a danger to both himself and the public, citing the large number of alleged sexual abuse images and the recency of these downloads.

DuBois was taken into custody on July 10 after he voluntarily surrendered to authorities under a warrant.

A criminal complaint reveals that DuBois “knowingly possessed at least 35 visual representations of children involved in sexually explicit activities.” It describes these as “images of nude boys and girls under 18 participating in various sexual acts.”

His legal representation comes from Harry Starbranch of Starbranch Law, located in Portsmouth; however, Starbranch did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Authorities report discovery of thousands of potential child abuse images

The police affidavit states that a cyber tip was received from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding “suspected child pornography” back in March. This tip was submitted by Google, and all flagged files had been uploaded to a Google Drive account linked to DuBois through a specific IP address.

A search warrant was executed at DuBois’ residence on Juniper Ridge Road on May 7.

During the search, police seized several items, including a Toshiba hard drive and an Apple laptop from DuBois’ office.

According to the affidavit, over 5,600 images were identified on the devices as potentially containing “child abuse content.”

The affidavit details twenty images, although some of the images were not flagged as potential child abusive content and were among 401,208 files on the hard drive.

Detective Bailey Teixeira of Exeter police estimated that the children in the images are between infancy and 12 years old.

Teixeira also reviewed DuBois’ internet search history, which included inquiries on January 27 related to individuals arrested for possessing abusive images. Some of the searches were phrases like “I accidentally saved child pornography to my main Google Drive” and “How to know if Google has reported me to the police.”

If found guilty, DuBois could face up to 15 years in prison along with a potential fine of $4,000 for each count.

DuBois has authored over twenty novels, including titles like “The First Lady” and “Cornwalls Are Gone.” He has also collaborated with his mentor, James Patterson—who is known as “the most published author in the world”—on several works, such as “The Summer House,” “Blowback,” and the newly released “Cross Down.”