Kittery Man Sentenced for Transporting Child Pornography

PORTLAND, Maine: A Kittery man was sentenced today in federal court in Portland for transporting images of child exploitation, Acting U.S. Attorney Donald E. Clark announced.

Chief U.S. District Judge John D. Levy sentenced Thomas Stewart, 32, to five years in prison followed by five years of supervised release. Stewart was also ordered to pay a total of $30,500 in restitution to 11 victims whose images he possessed. He pleaded guilty on October 30, 2019.

According to court records, in September 2018, Stewart uploaded numerous images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct to a Dropbox cloud storage account he controlled. After Dropbox reported the uploading of child exploitation images using its service, investigators determined that the IP address used to log into the Dropbox account was assigned to Stewart’s residence in Kittery.

In December 2018, investigators executed a search warrant at Stewart’s residence and seized several electronic devices, including a Samsung tablet. In an interview with investigators, Stewart admitted using the tablet to access child pornography. He also admitted storing hundreds of child pornography files in his Dropbox account.

The Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit, the U.S. Secret Service and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigated this case. The 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 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.