A Poplar Bluff man is facing 11 counts of possession of child pornography after items allegedly were found on his phone and in a Dropbox account purportedly belonging to him.
Joshua A. Thomas, 41, of the 2400 block of Thomas Street is charged with 10 Class B felony charges of possession of child pornography and one Class D felony count of possession of child pornography for the first offense. The Class B felony charges each carry sentences of between five and 15 years in prison, while the Class D felony charge could result in up to seven years in prison.
According to the probable cause statement, Poplar Bluff Police Department Detective Danny Hicks received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on July 12, 2021, which was forwarded to him through the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children state office in St. Charles.
According to the tip, Dropbox reported one of its users with the email joe.mama1981@yahoo.com for allegedly uploading 15 videos of confirmed child pornography on May 15, 2021. A records check revealed the IP address to be registered to Sparklight with a possible location in Poplar Bluff.
On July 14, 2021, Hicks obtained a subpoena through the Butler County Circuit Court to identify the account holder of the IP address. That subpoena was emailed to Sparklight, which identified it as belonging to a resident of the 2400 block of Thomas Street.
Hicks then got a search warrant to obtain the contents of the Dropbox account associated with the email joe.mama1981@yahoo.com. When Hicks looked at the account, it allegedly contained 29 videos of child pornography.
Hicks obtained a search warrant for the residence in the 2400 block of Thomas Street on July 15, 2021, according to authorities. During the search, a black Motorola mobile phone was allegedly taken from Thomas, along with an iPad, three laptops, a desktop computer and a thumb drive. Thomas denied having a Dropbox account and also denied ever having the email address associated with it.
When Hicks conducted a forensic examination on July 20, 2021, of the mobile phone taken from Thomas, he allegedly found five videos of child pornography and one image of child pornography.
Thomas currently is free on $75,000 bond. He is slated to make his initial court appearance June 6 at the Butler County Courthouse.
Further information concerning the progress of the case since 2021 was not available at press time.