Judge okays former Sarcoxie board member's motion to reconsider guilty plea

U. S. District Court Judge Brian Wimes sustained the motion by attorneys for former Sarcoxie Board of Education member John Lewis to allow Lewis to reconsider his guilty plea on a child pornography charge.

Lewis faces as much as 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

He recently replaced his original attorney, Dee Wampler of Springfield, with Springfield attorneys Tom Carver and Shane Cantin.

The crime to which Lewis pleaded guilty was described in the plea agreement:

On October 4, 2012, a Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) Trooper initiated an investigation regarding John R. Lewis at the request of the Jasper County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. After taking the initial
complaint, the Trooper interviewed witnesses.

On December 5, 2012, MSHP Troopers contacted Lewis at his residence located at 4360 Dandelion, Sarcoxie, Missouri. At the conclusion of an interview with Lewis, an MSHP Trooper asked Lewis for his consent to search his computers for any images of child pornography. Lewis stated he had images on his computer he did not want to be made public. Lewis stated he had two computers in his residence, a desktop and a laptop. When Lewis mentioned the desktop he pointed to a nearby office that was visible. Lewis stated he had downloaded images of naked children from a nudist website to his desktop computer. Lewis refused to give consent.

Based on the above information, the Troopers secured the residence and obtained a search warrant to search Lewis’s residence including the computers and all electronic storage devices. During a subsequent search an additional desktop computer was located in a basement bedroom along with multiple electronic storage devices. All computers and electronic storage devices were located inside the residence.

The computers and storage drives were submitted to the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force (SMCCTF) for analysis. The forensic examiner reviewed 19 multimedia files that he labeled as child pornography due to the activity depicted and 113 still images of suspected child pornography. The multimedia files and still images primarily depicted male children, with the youngest child being approximately 5 years of age, engaged in the display of genitalia, masturbation, oral sex, and anal intercourse.

These images traveled in interstate or foreign commerce via the internet.