WASHINGTON – Thomas Conrad Lowery, 48, of Americus, Ga., was sentenced today to 235 months in prison on child exploitation charges, announced Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Maxwell Wood for the Middle District of Georgia.
In addition to serving 235 months in prison, Lowery was sentenced by Judge W. Louis Sands in U.S. District Court in Albany, Ga., to lifetime supervised release following his release from prison. After eight days of trial, a federal grand jury convicted Lowery on Jan. 31, 2008, on all three counts with which he was charged: one count of transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity; one count of receiving child pornography; and one count of possessing child pornography.
Evidence and testimony presented at trial established that Lowery contacted a child actor using the Internet in 2001. Lowery arranged to meet with the child in Los Angeles and he paid the airfare and lodging costs for the child and a sibling to travel from Florida to Los Angeles. Ultimately, in June 2001, Lowery stayed in the same hotel room and engaged in criminal sexual activity with the child. In addition, information about a previous similar incident of molestation – in which Lowery transported another child from Georgia to Toronto, Canada, in July 2000 to engage in criminal sexual activity – was introduced at the trial. The jury also heard evidence and testimony that Lowery possessed and received images of child pornography on his work computer at the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office between January 2002 and July 2004.
Lowery’s case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Leah McEwen and Trial Attorney Michael Yoon of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. The case was investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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