Morro Bay fish market owner found with child porn and ‘banned’ guns, witness says
A prominent Morro Bay business owner will face trial for multiple felony charges including the possession child pornography and illegal guns, San Luis Obispo County Superior Court Judge Rita Federman ruled on Thursday.
Giovanni DeGarimore, of Giovanni’s Fish Market, was charged with six felonies on Nov. 22, 2023, including three charges of possession of an assault weapon, one charge of possession of a short barrel shotgun, one charge of carrying a concealed firearm in a vehicle and one charge of possession of child pornography. The charge of concealed carry was reduced to a misdemeanor on Thursday.
DeGarimore, 52, pleaded not guilty to all the charges on Feb. 5, 2024.
The charges against DeGarimore follow four sexual harassment lawsuits filed by employees against his business in 2021 and 2022, all four of which were settled, The Tribune previously reported in 2024.
Thursday’s preliminary hearing was the first time evidence in the case was presented to the public, nearly two-and-a-half years after his arrest.
Two police investigators took the stand to testify to the evidence of child pornography material and assault rifles they said were found during searches of DeGarimore’s multiple residences.
The purpose of the hearing was for the judge to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to warrant a trial, which Federman found true.
“I do find probable cause for strong suspicion to believe that Mr. DeGarimore did commit all six offenses,” Federman said.
DeGarimore will be arraigned for trial on April 21 in Department 1 of San Luis Obispo Superior Court.
What evidence was presented?
The investigation into DeGarimore began on July 13, 2023, when his then-girlfriend Amy Colbert approached police after searching DeGarimore’s devices over suspected infidelity, Atascadero police Officer Craig Martineau said on the witness stand Thursday.
Colbert, who had been dating DeGarimore for around three years at that point, reported that she searched his Google email and photo accounts and found two images of naked “pre-pubescent” girls on his computer at their shared home in Atascadero, Martineau said.
One of the photos was a collage of six images screenshotted from a chatroom and at least one juvenile photographed appeared to be under 10 years old, he said.
She showed these images to Martineau, who then ran DeGarimore’s email and phone number through a law enforcement database of cybertips — online tips made by individuals or internet service providers — on suspected online child sexual abuse material. The search resulted in a cybertip connected to DeGarimore’s information, Martineau said.
Martineau then obtained a search warrant for DeGarimore’s Google account, including his email and images. Martineau located the original images Colbert showed him — both screenshots from September 2022 — and a third image of a naked female child.
The warrant also showed DeGarimore’s Google search history, which showed he searched online for “tween” girl websites and an Albanian porn website connected to the screenshotted images found on his account.
On cross-examination, Martineau confirmed that Colbert was initially suspicious that DeGarimore’s sister’s male partner — who lived in a trailer on the property and who she described as “creepy” — was responsible for the images being on the computer, given that he also had access to the home.
On Nov. 14, 2023, officers searched DeGarimore’s Atascadero home for electronic devices, said Atascadero Police Officer Samuel Rodriguez, who took over the investigation from Martineau around that time.
During that search, the officer found a safe that contained several firearms, including two assault rifles, and a hard drive, Rodriguez said.
One of the assault rifles was an AR-15 center fire rifle, meaning it was “more high-pressure and more powerful,” Rodriguez said. The second was a Norinco brand of “category two assault rifles that was banned a while ago,” he said.
DeGarimore told Rodriguez the guns had been given to him by his father and he was unsure if they were legal in California, which is why he kept them in a safe, the police officer said.
Police also searched DeGarimore’s other residences, one on Worcester Drive in Cambria and another in Bradley, where they confiscated more electronic devices and found more assault rifles, Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez found 25 images of child sex abuse material on one of the devices, largely including girls under the age of 10, he said. The images were downloaded and cached on the device between 2020 and October 2023, he said.
All of them had been recently modified — meaning they had been viewed, moved, deleted or otherwise accessed — at the time they were found in November 2023, he said.
