SEARSPORT, Maine — A local man who works in two elementary schools as a computer technician was arrested Tuesday after police reportedly found child pornography on his computer.
Travis Rowe, 24, had a “fair number” of pornographic videos showing children as young as 5 or 6, Sgt. Glenn Lang of the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit said Wednesday morning.
“We’ve got no reason to believe, at this time, that it involves local children,” Lang said.
After Massachusetts police alerted his unit on Sept. 23 that someone in Searsport was sharing child pornography from an Internet protocol, or IP, address, police began the meticulous work of figuring out who it was.
“Obviously, if we had known it was an employee at the elementary school, we would have been there on the 23rd,” Lang said.
But first they found the IP address was registered to Rowe’s parents, with whom he lives, and then learned that Rowe works at both the Hope and Appleton elementary schools.
Then police moved fast, Lang said. Thanks to a new partnership with the Maine Attorney General’s Office, they were able to get a search warrant much faster than in the past.
“That partnership has allowed us to move quickly on these cases,” Lang said.
A Maine state trooper went to Hope Elementary School to meet with officials, who have been very cooperative, he said.
“They’ve turned over anything he had access to,” Lang said.
Then Lang met with Rowe, who denied being involved with child pornography.
“We’ve got a mountain of data to go through to confirm that,” Lang said.
The investigation is continuing, in part because Rowe is an “IT guy,” he said, referring to the suspect being familiar with information technology and owning several computers that must be examined.
“They tend to collect IT stuff,” Lang said.
Rowe was arrested and charged with possession of sexually explicit materials, a Class C felony. He was taken to Waldo County Jail in Belfast, where he was booked and then released on $1,000 cash bail Tuesday afternoon, according to a jail official.
Judith Harvey, superintendent of School Union 69, said Rowe was placed on administrative leave Tuesday from his full-time job as a computer technician.
“His position was primarily involved in maintaining hardware and software,” she said. “He didn’t work directly with students.”