ELEVENTH CIRCUIT AFFIRMS CONVICTION OF REPEAT CHILD PORNOGRAPHY OFFENDER

TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA – On June 23, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the child pornography conviction of Andrew John Ewing, 40, of Tallahassee Florida. In January 2024, a jury convicted Ewing of possessing child pornography. This was Ewing’s second child-pornography-related conviction. Senior U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Hinkle sentenced Ewing to 120 months in prison, and Ewing appealed.

U.S. Attorney Heekin said: “The Eleventh Circuit’s ruling this week not only affirmed the conviction of a serious child pornography offender, it also upheld the legality of important investigatory tools needed to identify and catch these predators.  My office will continue to work with our excellent local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to deploy those investigatory tools and aggressively pursue these sick offenders who prey upon and seek to victimize our children.”

In the fall of 2022, the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force conducted a proactive investigation to identify users, including Ewing, who were sharing child pornography material online through peer-to-peer networks.  In January of 2023, a search warrant was obtained and executed for Ewing’s residence and electronic devices. A forensic examination of Ewing’s devices revealed child pornography involving children as young as six years old.

Ewing challenged his 2024 conviction on appeal, arguing that law enforcement violated his Fourth Amendment rights by using special BitTorrent software to download child pornography from his computer in 2022 without a warrant. Ewing also challenged the government’s presentation of the child pornography evidence during trial. The Eleventh Circuit held oral argument on May 7, 2025, and ultimately rejected both arguments in a published opinion. The Court concluded that law enforcement’s warrantless downloads of child pornography files Ewing made publicly available on the BitTorrent network were not a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment because the downloads violated neither Ewing’s privacy nor property rights. The Court also found no error in the government’s “relatively limited” presentation of the child pornography evidence at trial. As a published opinion, the Court’s ruling is binding on all future cases brought in the Eleventh Circuit, which includes all federal district courts in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

The conviction was the result of an investigation conducted by the Tallahassee Police Department, the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, and Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant United States Attorney Jordane New represented the government in briefing and at oral argument before the Eleventh Circuit. Assistant United States Attorney Justin M. Keen prosecuted the case before the district court.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice and led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Divisions Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), it marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida is one of 94 offices that serve as the nation’s principal litigators under the direction of the Attorney General. To access available public court documents online, please visit the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida website. For more information about the United States Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Florida, visit http://www.justice.gov/usao/fln/index.html.