A 39-year-old Summerfield man has been arrested on 20 counts of possession of child pornography.
On Dec. 26 and Feb. 14, Marion County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes detectives received information that multiple files of child pornography were uploaded to John Robert McDowell’s email account. It was later determined that McDowell possessed the child pornography in November 2016.
Contact was then made with McDowell, who was already in the Marion County Jail on unrelated charges. Detectives conducted a search warrant of his phone that was with his property at the jail and discovered 20 explicit files of child pornography in the form of screenshots. These screenshots were time stamped, confirming that McDowell took the screenshots on Nov. 20. McDowell denied having a cell phone and the email accounts in question. When detectives told him that they had requested information from his phone and email providers for the details of his accounts, McDowell requested an attorney.
McDowell was previously ordered to serve 330 days in the Marion County Jail for three violation of probation charges. McDowell was given credit for 235 days that he already served and his date for release on those charges would be July 19. Now, McDowell will have to post the $400,000 bond on the 20 child pornography charges before he can be released.