A 28-year-old Cottonwood man, JJ Austin Angel Amack McFarland, of Cottonwood, was sentenced on Friday to 12 years in the Arizona Department of Corrections for Sexual Exploitation of a Minor. McFarland was also sentenced to a consecutive term of lifetime probation, and will be required to register as a sex offender.
McFarland, also known as Jay McFarland, was identified when the internet data storage company Dropbox reported to a national tip line on September 1, 2017, that a customer had uploaded child pornography to its servers.
Investigators with the Attorney General’s Office, working as a part of the Phoenix Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, identified McFarland as the customer and executed a search warrant at his home on February 6, 2018. McFarland pleaded guilty to possessing images of child pornography on a blue Samsung phone he surrendered to investigators at the time of his arrest.