Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Janitor At Local High School Pleads Guilty To Attempting To Produce Child Pornography In Secretly Filming Students In Girls’ Locker Room

 Jacksonville, Florida – Jason Brian Goff (44, Starke) has pleaded guilty to attempted production of child pornography. He faces a minimum mandatory penalty of 15 years, and up to 30 years, in federal prison. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

According to the plea agreement, in August 2019, two 14-year-old Clay High School students reported that they had seen what they believed was a camera lens, concealed within a locked gym locker, in the Clay High School girls’ locker room. When school administrators unlocked the locker, they discovered a cellphone taped to the side wall of the locker with the lens pointed out of a pre-fabricated hole.

A forensic analysis of the phone yielded a video, lasting 30 minutes, which had been filmed from a window looking into the locker room where female students were captured changing clothes. At the end of the video, the phone had been panned down to show the identification badge of Clay High School Custodian Jason Goff.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Clay County Sheriff’s Office arrested Goff on September 13, 2019. Goff later admitted that he had tried filming girls in the locker room at least three times from different vantage points.

Forensic analyses of other electronic devices belonging to Goff revealed additional images from the girls’ high school locker room and a collection of child pornography, to include a video and images of adults sexually abusing children of various ages, including images of infants.  

This case was investigated by the Clay County Sheriff’s Office and Homeland Security Investigations. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kelly S. Karase.

It is another case brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc. 

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