John Towers, a 54-year-old man from Mahopac, New York, has been charged with sexually exploiting minors in a public bathroom. The defendant allegedly placed hidden cameras in a bathroom at a privately owned public park in Putnam County, New York, to capture sexually explicit images of prepubescent minors.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Towers used the hidden cameras to record the minors from at least July 24, 2018, to December 9, 2019. The recordings were then transferred to a hard drive, which was later recovered by law enforcement during a search of Towers’ residence.
The investigation discovered that the hard drive contained over 800 videos of females, including prepubescent females, using a bathroom. Approximately 78 of the videos had file names that included the term “yung.” The videos were found to be explicit and contain minors engaging in sexually explicit activity.
Towers was also found to have possessed DVDs containing video files he downloaded from the internet, which depicted prepubescent minors engaging in sexually explicit activity. He was arrested on March 29, 2024, and charged with two counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child less than 17 years old, three counts of possessing an obscene sexual performance by a child, and one count of endangering the welfare of a child in Carmel Town Court in Putnam Valley.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Putnam County District Attorney’s Office, and the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office are all involved in the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcia S. Cohen is handling the prosecution.
Towers faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for the charge of sexual exploitation of a minor, as well as a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the charge of possession of child pornography. The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
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Related Federal Cases
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Key Facts
- State: New York
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Sex Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
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