WHITE PLAINS – A 54-year-old Mahopac man has been arrested on federal charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child pornography.
The federal complaint alleged that from about July 24, 2018 and up to at least December 9, 2019, John Towers placed hidden cameras in a bathroom in a privately owned, public park in Putnam County to surreptitiously record prepubescent minors in order to capture sexually explicit images of them.
Following execution of a search warrant at Towers’ residence, law enforcement recovered a hard drive containing over 800 videos of girls, including prepubescent girls, using a bathroom.
Approximately 78 of the videos had file names including the term “yung.”
On March 29, 2024, Towers, while in Putnam County, he possessed DVDs containing video files he downloaded from the internet depicting prepubescent minors engaging in sexually explicit activity.
On March 29, 2024, Towers was arrested and charged in Carmel Town Court with two counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child under the age of 17, three counts of possessing an obscene sexual performance by a child, and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.
He was on bail at the time of Friday’s arrest.
Towers was charged federally with sexual exploitation of a minor, which carries from 15 to 30 years in prison and possession of child pornography, which carries up to 20 years in prison.
