Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Former Sarcoxie School Board member back behind bars

Former Sarcoxie R-2 Board of Education member John Lewis is back behind bars following a brief hearing last week in U. S. District Court in Springfield.

Judge David P. Rush ordered that Lewis be held while awaiting a final probation revocation hearing. Lewis who was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of possession of child pornography, only served a few months before being released.

Court records indicate he allegedly violated his probation on March 31 and April 7. No date has been set for the revocation hearing.

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 travelled in interstate or foreign commerce via the internet.

2 comments:

Caren said...

I know Mr. Lewis quite well and have spent a lot of time over many years, so I'd, personally, appreciate it if you got your facts straight before you post them. He did not serve "a few months" but rather two years in federal prison before being released.

Randy said...

Lewis was sentenced to two years in 2014. If he had served anywhere near the full two years, he would still have been in prison until the spring of 2016. The post is accurate.