Tip from Dropbox leads to Columbus sex offender arrested

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- A tip from a cloud storage company led to Columbus police searching a registered sex offender's home and arresting him on a new charge.

David A. Stickler, 34, faces a felony count of pandering sexually oriented material involving minors, according to Franklin County Municipal Court records. He was already on the sex offender registry due to a 2014 conviction on a similar charge.

The latest arrest came after Columbus police received a tip passed along from Dropbox, a file-hosting website also known for its cloud storage services, a detective wrote an an affidavit. The company reported that on Sept. 4, a user had uploaded multiple files depicting child sexual abuse. The account had an email with Stickler's first name initial and full last name on it, and the phone number registered to Dropbox for multifactor authentication was registered to him as well.

Dropbox also collected the IP address from the user logging in. After Columbus police issued a subpoena to Spectrum, they found that the IP address was associated with Stickler's home address in the 3500 block of Watkins Road.

The detective who wrote in the affidavit reviewed the files Dropbox found and confirmed they depicted children engaging in sexual acts. He then served a search warrant on the Dropbox account and wrote that he found additional child sex abuse images and videos.

Columbus police and the Franklin County Internet Crimes Against Children task force went to Stickler's home on Nov. 29 and arrested him. A SWAT team also served a search warrant inside the home.

Stickler could face additional charges from the case, according to the Columbus Division of Police. Franklin County Municipal Court records showed he had an arraignment scheduled for 9 a.m. on Thursday.