Step Into Life boss John Cargnello ordered to stand trial for possession of child porn

The Mordialloc boss of an Australia-wide fitness franchise, who was jailed for child sex crimes, has been accused of offending again.

Step Into Life boss John Cargnello has been charged with possession of child porn. Picture: Facebook

The boss of a crumbling fitness empire was allegedly caught with child pornography after police raided his Mordialloc home.

Step Into Life owner John Cargnello, 67, fronted the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court this week after he was charged with possession of child pornography.

The court heard investigators raided Cargnello’s Albert St home on December 19, 2018, followed by his business headquarters.

Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team investigator Clint Ousley told the court police searched Cargnello’s home looking for evidence he had breached a Sex Offender Registration Act condition through interstate travel.

Mr Ousley said police were looking for evidence including emails, travel documents and photographs which could show if Cargnello had breached his SORA conditions by leaving Victoria.

Cargnello was placed on the registry after he was convicted in NSW in 2009 for importing child pornography and encouragement of sexual intercourse with a child under 16 years of age outside Australia.

Investigators seized and later searched several devices, including USBs, SD cards, hard drives, a Samsung Galaxy phone and Hewlett Packard PC.

It’s alleged police discovered child pornography on the PC and seven images were allegedly located on a Google Photos “download folder”.

Defence barrister Jason Gullaci, said, during cross-examination of E-Crime investigator Andrew Marriott, Cargnello had been jailed between 2009 and 2014 for “similar alleged offending”.

The court heard Cargnello’s former wife played a significant role in prosecuting him for that offending after she located child abuse material on his laptop.

It was heard the ex-wife then went on to approach various journalists about Cargnello’s crimes.

Mr Gullaci asked Mr Marriott if he was aware the “modified access creation date” of many of the alleged child abuse images found by police n 2018 occurred while Cargnello was in jail.

“It will be pretty difficult wouldn’t it, based on your experience, Mr Marriott for someone to affect the modified access creation date, assuming it’s correct, of child abuse from inside a prison, correct?”.

“I would expect that to be the case,” Mr Marriott said.

During cross-examination of the police witnesses Mr Gullaci repeatedly inferred the police had gone to Cargnello’s home to search for child abuse material, rather than to look for breaches of SORA, as was written on the warrant.

Cargnello, who appeared via videolink on bail, ran a flourishing outdoor fitness business which had franchises throughout Australia but business has dipped since he was charged.

Cargnello was also charged with failing to comply with sex offender reporting conditions with police alleging he took trips to Perth, Sydney and Brisbane without giving proper notice to authorities in 2018.

It’s also alleged Cargnello did not disclose his Snapchat account handle ‘johnecar’ to police.

Magistrate Fiona Hayes ruled there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction for the six charges against Cargnello, committing him to trial.

His bail was continued.

Cargnello will appear before the County Court next month for a directions hearing.

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