Crownsville Man Pleads Guilty to Possession of Child Pornography

 Johnson possessed over 2,000 images of child pornography

Greenbelt, Maryland – Jared Johnson, age 36, of Crownsville, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to possession of child pornography. 

The plea was announced by Acting United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Jonathan F. Lenzner; Special Agent in Charge James R. Mancuso of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Baltimore; Anne Colt Leitess of the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office; and Anne Arundel Police Chief Amal Awad.

According to his guilty plea, from Mary 2020 to August 2020, an internet cloud storage service provider sent the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children five cybertipline reports detailing hundreds of child pornography images uploaded to an account within its internet platform. The account was associated with Johnson’s cellular number and IP address located at Johnson’s Crownsville, Maryland residence.

Over the course of five reports, the internet storage provider reported over 2,500 images of child pornography uploaded to Johnson’s account.

During a search of Johnson’s residence on July 24, 2020, Anne Arundel County detectives recovered Johnson’s cell phone and computer. The devices were hidden in the basement, submerged underwater within the basement’s sump pump system. A forensic analysis of the computer revealed that Johnson possessed over 12,000 images and videos of child pornography on the computer system.

After examination of Johnson’s online cloud account, Anne Arundel County Police detectives discovered thousands of images and videos containing child pornographic material, including a 38-minute video compilation depicting prepubescent children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. 

U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher has not scheduled a sentencing hearing at this time.

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 the United States Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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.  For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/psc and click on the “Resources” tab on the left of the page.         

Acting United States Attorney Jonathan F. Lenzner commended the HSI, Anne Arundel State’s Attorney’s Office, and the Anne Arundel Police Department for their work in the investigation.  Mr. Lenzner thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Duey who is prosecuting the federal case.