Bentonville man arrested in child pornography sting

 Jarrit Allen Lewis
Jarrit Allen Lewis

A 34-year-old man was arrested Wednesday in connection with child pornography.

Jarrit Allen Lewis of 1006 S.E. Benton St., Apt. D, in Bentonville was arrested Wednesday in connection with distributing, possessing or viewing sexually explicit conduct involving a child.

Benton County deputies found pornographic images available for download from a local IP address later connected to Lewis during an online sting in June, according to an affidavit for his arrest.

Deputies seized two laptop computers, a desktop computer, several external hard drives, six flash drives, two cell phones, a computer tablet, a book of CDs, a pipe with drug residue and 10 grams of marijuana from Lewis' address when a search warrant was served Oct. 7, according to the affidavit.

Lewis initially told deputies he viewed pornography while attempting to delete a virus from his computer, but images he had were of teens, according to the affidavit. He later told deputies some of the images would be of younger children. He provided deputies with a password to the encrypted files.

Four external hard drives and a computer tablet had pornographic images of girls deputies estimate to be between 9 and 16 years old, according to the affidavit.

Deputies found 294 nude images and 22 videos of nude images or sexually explicit activities, and there were 764 images of child erotica, according to the affidavit.

Lewis was booked into the county jail on Wednesday and released the same day on a $10,000 bond.

NW News on 02/12/2016

Upcoming Events