MANHEIM, Pa. — A Manheim man is facing felony charges after police allegedly found over 50 files of child pornography on a Dropbox account registered to him.
The investigation into Justin Lowe, 33, began in November 2023, when police received a tip from Dropbox and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children alleging that an account had uploaded and downloaded multiple child pornography files. Police tracked the IP address to Lowe's apartment on Sunny Slope Lane in Penn Township, according to a criminal complaint.
Investigators say they served a search warrant at Lowe's residence on Jan. 5 and seized three phones and two laptops.
Lowe told investigators during the search that he had a long-term addiction to pornography but believed the last time he had sent images of child pornography was in 2017 or 2018, according to an affidavit of probable cause. He allegedly said he had gotten a new computer in October 2023 and decided to look through his old Dropbox account. After about an hour, the site flagged and locked down his account.
Police note that when they received a link to the files stored on Lowe's Dropbox account, the download was so large that it would not open on the agency's server and had to be opened at the Lancaster County District Attorney's Digital Forensic Unit.
One of the phones seized from Lowe's apartment did not contain any illicit material, but the other devices did have child pornography, according to a criminal complaint.
Lowe is charged with eight felony counts of child pornography. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on March 11.
