LEHI, Utah, Jan. 16, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — Officials allegedly found more than 2,000 explicit images of children on a Lehi man’s devices.
A probable cause statement from Utah County said Ethan Douglas Montrose, 20, was arrested Wednesday and is facing 10 charges of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony.
On Sept. 17, 2018, Dropbox filed a CyberTipline report with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding an email address, the statement said. Dropbox reported the suspect user allegedly uploaded 930 files of child pornography to a Dropbox account.
The arresting officer reviewed the reported images and videos and confirmed they were child pornography, with some of the videos allegedly featuring female toddlers.
On Jan. 28, 2019, Dropbox filed another CyberTipline report with NCMEC regarding another email address. Dropbox reported that the suspect user uploaded four files of child pornography to the Dropbox account. The login IP address was the same as the other email account, the statement said. The images and video were confirmed to be child pornography, including images of a two-year-old girl.
Using the information from the first CyberTipline report, the arresting officer located a valid Utah driver’s license for Ethan Douglas Montrose. The officer conducted surveillance of his Lehi address and located a vehicle registered to Montrose. A residential search warrant was obtained for the Lehi address on Oct. 29, 2019.
The officer interviewed Montrose, who told him that he has two email accounts that have his name in them, but neither of the accounts in question belonged to him. Montrose explained that when he created emails, he used a combination of his name and birth date, and only used Google’s email domain, Gmail, to create email accounts. He denied uploading child pornography to a Dropbox account.
The arresting officer then told Montrose that one of the email addresses reported to the CyberTip line had the suspect’s last name and two of the numbers in his birthdate.
“After I confronted Montrose with the email reported by Dropbox, he gave a blank stare and paused for a few seconds,” the statement said. “Montrose then requested an attorney. I stopped the interview. I seized seven electronic media storage devices from the residence.”
On Dec. 12, Google responded to a search warrant and provided IP logs of all four of Ethan Montrose’s Gmail accounts. The IP address was listed in every account as the login IP address; the same IP address reported by Dropbox in the CyberTipline reports.
A search of the suspect’s Samsung cell phone was performed and the officer found an HTML link that led to an image depicting four frames. One of the images within this frame was one of the same images of child pornography reported to NCMEC.
A review of the account information showed that Montrose direct messaged other users and allegedly uploaded over 20 images of a 6-year-old female with whom he held a position of trust.
“Thousands of files of child sex abuse material were found on Montrose’s devices and in his social media accounts,” the statement said. “I submitted 2,322 files to NCMEC.”
Montrose was transported to Utah County Jail with his bail set at $100,000.
