Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Jason Joseph Howe, 20, of Bell, was arrested yesterday for possession of child pornography.

On December 16, a Special Agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) was assigned a CyberTip reporting that suspected child sexual abuse material (CSAM) was transmitted in a Snapchat private message.

The CyberTip was originally assigned to the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, but a preliminary investigation found that Howe, who lives in Bell, was the owner of the Snapchat account, so the investigation was turned over to FDLE.

Snapchat data reportedly showed that an iPhone SE 2020 logged into the account a few minutes before the CSAM image was sent in a private chat.

On December 20, FDLE Special Agents reportedly made contact with Howe in the parking lot of GrowHealthy Dispensary (4880 Newberry Road); Special Agents had a warrant to search his iPhone and reportedly took possession of Howe’s iPhone SE 2020.

Post Miranda, Howe reportedly confirmed that the iPhone SE 2020 was his phone and that he had a Snapchat account. When he was shown a sanitized version of one of the CSAM images, he reportedly said he recognized it and acknowledged that it was “graphic in nature.” He reportedly said he did not know the identity of the child in the image and said it was sent to him in a Telegram chat as part of “an estimated 100 videos or images”; he said about 60 of those were CSAM images.

When a Special Agent showed Howe part of the Snapchat private chat, Howe reportedly said he had been engaged in a “role-playing chat” and had pretended that the girl in the image was his little sister. The other account in the chat reportedly claimed to be under 18 years old.

Howe has been charged with two counts of possession of child pornography, two counts of transmitting harmful material to a minor, and use of a two-way communications device to facilitate a felony. Howe has no criminal convictions in Alachua County or Gilchrist County. Judge James Colaw set bail at $425,000.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.