1000+ Child Porn Images Found In Morris County Home: Prosecutor

MORRIS COUNTY, NJ — A Morris County man has been arrested in connection with maintaining a peer-to-peer child abuse network and possession of child sex abuse material, the Morris County Prosecutor's Office announced.

Jose A. Lousa, 60, of Mount Olive Township, was arrested on Dec. 7 following an investigation into a tip from the United States Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations Newark—Child Exploitation Group, Morris County Prosecutor Robert J. Carroll said.

Lousa was charged with one count of endangering the welfare of a child (Maintaining a Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Program of Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM)), a first-degree offense; and one count of endangering the welfare of a child (Possession of CSAM), a second-degree offense.

According to investigators, the United States Department of Homeland Security identified possible child pornography on a BitTorrent site in Morris County. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file-sharing network.

Based on the tip, investigators found numerous media files, each depicting the alleged sexual exploitation or abuse of a child, were stored on the BitTorrent site. The investigation further revealed that those files were accessible for download.

The police said that they believe that the BitTorrent site is associated with Lousa's residence. Further investigation revealed more than 1,000 items of child pornography were available for download from the BitTorrent site.

Since his arrest last week, Lousa has been released with pretrial release conditions that include monitoring and limited internet usage, police said.

Additional conditions of his release include that Lousa is to have no unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 18.

Anyone with information relating to this investigation is asked to contact the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force of the Sex Crimes and Child Endangerment Unit of the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office at 973-285-6200.