Ocala Man Sentenced To More Than Ten Years In Prison For Possession Of Child Sex Abuse Material

Ocala, Florida – Senior U.S. District Judge John Antoon II has sentenced Justin Lewis (41, Ocala) to 10 years and 7 months in federal prison for possession of child sexual abuse material. This sentence must be served after another 5 and a half-year federal sentence Lewis is currently serving for wire fraud. A jury had previously found Lewis guilty of the child sexual abuse material offense on June 27, 2023.

According to testimony and evidence presented at trial, federal agents executed a search warrant at Lewis’s Ocala residence on February 7, 2018, looking for evidence in the wire fraud investigation. During the search, agents found two external hard drives on Lewis’s desk that contained video files depicting child sexual abuse material. The same hard drives also contained numerous files and documents attributed to Lewis, including his personal photographs, a copy of his high school diploma, emails, text messages, and assorted business records. One of the hard drives was also encrypted with the same password that Lewis used for many of his personal accounts.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney William S. Hamilton.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.