A federal jury Thursday found Justin Lewis, 41, Ocala, guilty of possession of child sex abuse images. Lewis faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.
His sentencing hearing has not yet been set. Lewis had originally been indicted on February 6, 2019. A federal grand jury later returned a superseding indictment on June 20, 2023.
According to testimony and evidence presented at trial, federal agents executed a search warrant at Lewis’s Ocala residence on February 7, 2018, in an unrelated wire fraud investigation.
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During the search, agents located two external hard drives on Lewis’s desk that contained video files depicting young children being sexually abused.
The hard drives also contained numerous files and documents attributed to Lewis, including personal photographs, copies of his high school diploma, emails, text messages, and business records.
One of the hard drives was also encrypted with a password that Lewis also used for many of his personal accounts.
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