Retiree arrested on child porn charges

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

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Stowell was arrested Sunday night.

A 72-year-old Tampa man has been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography.

And it was family members that turned him in.

Roger Stowell, a retiree with no criminal history, was taken into custody Sunday night at Tampa International Airport after he returned from a trip to Peru.

Stowell, who was once a school administrator, is accused of having images of child pornography on his computer.

And according to authorities, Stowell had child pornography on him at the time of his arrest. He is being held without bond and is facing federal charges.

Retiree Arrested

Officials said Stowell's wife initially became suspicious of his activities when he became secretive of his computer usage. His wife called authorities last month while Stowell was out of town.

According to authorities, she saw an image of a naked child on his computer once when he forgot to take it off.

Also, Stowell's adult son told authorities that he found thousands of pornographic images of children on his father's computer after his mother asked him to take a look.

Stowell's wife said she never saw him act inappropriately around children but added that he was fired years ago as a principal of a school in Germany amid allegations that he molested a boy. There were never any charges filed.

A multiagency task force that targets Internet sex crimes involving minors investigated the case before the arrest happened. An examination of Stowell's computer revealed him with what appeared to be the same children shown in pornographic images and movies.

The images looked as though they were taken outside the United States, perhaps in South America, federal records said.

Information from Bay News 9's partner paper, the St. Petersburg Times, was used in this report.

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