MISSOURI
Former Greene County Sheriff’s Deputy Juan Jones, 27, of Springfield, Mo., was charged with possessing 168 videos and 1,500 images depicting child pornography that was allegedly found in his Dropbox account, officials said.
Some of the files depict children as young as infants being sexually abused by adult males.
A federal complaint was filed Wednesday and Jones was arrested at the Sheriff’s Department where he works as a patrol officer, according to officials.
The criminal complaint alleges that Jones was in possession of child pornography between Aug. 21, 2015, and Jan. 6, 2016.
According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, law enforcement received a Cyber Tip that had originally been filed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by Dropbox, Inc.
Dropbox is a file hosting service and online backup facility that offers cloud storage, file synchronization and client software.
Dropbox had discovered many video and image files that they believed contained child pornography. Investigators determined that Jones was connected to the account responsible for uploading those files to Dropbox.
A search warrant was executed for the Dropbox account, which contained 168 video files and approximately 1,500 image files depicting child pornography.
A search warrant was executed on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016, at Jones’s residence.
While the warrant was being executed, law enforcement officers contacted Jones at his place of employment, the Greene County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department, and he was placed under arrest.
Jones is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Jones was the subject of a December 2014 feature story in the News-Leader saying he was the county’s only black patrol deputy.
In the story, Jones told the News-Leader that he grew up poor in St. Louis in and out of 21 foster homes. He said he was homeless in Springfield as recently as 2007.
“I grew up around drugs and alcohol and domestic abuse,” he told the newspaper. “Crack was the main choice of drug. I didn’t meet my dad until 2013.”
The story said Jones was married and has two young daughters, according to the newspaper report.