Judge Dismisses Child Porn Charges Against Man Who Filmed His Naked Children
December 3, 2012 at 9:39 am by Morbid
Mankato, MN – A judge has thrown out the child pornography charges field against the head coach at Minnesota State-Mankato after nude videos of his children where discovered on his work-issued Blackberry.
This past August, police escorted 46-year-old Todd Hoffner off the field days after he turned his university-issued phone to the I.T. department to be checked out. He wasn’t told specifically why until he was arrested days later on child pornography charges over some videos found on his work phone.
The videos in question were of his nude children and investigators found the videos disturbing. They filed charges against him after conferring with the state prosecutor. Hoffner, with his wife constantly by his side, has said he is innocent from the beginning and that the videos were not pornographic. he stated they were just his three kids being silly in front of the camera after taking a bath.
These videos, two in particular that lasted a minute, reportedly show Hoffner’s 8-year-old boy grabbing his genitals and his two daughters, ages 9 and 5, bending over and spreading their asses apart for the camera. After his arrest, police confiscated computers and other equipment from Hoffman’s home but did not find any evidence to support the prosecution’s allegations that Hoffman was creating child porn. County social workers testified that after talking to the children and watching the videos themselves, they found no evidence to support that the couple’s children had been abused.
Still, assistant county prosecutor Mike Hanson said that the charges should stay and that a jury should decide for themselves if the videos were pornographic or not. “You typically have videos made to show to your friends or put on Facebook,” he said. “That didn’t happen here and it didn’t happen for a pretty good reason.”
But on Wednesday, Blue Earth County District Judge Krista Jass agreed with Hoffner, dismissing the case for lack of probable cause. She ruled the videos did not meet the legal definition of child pornography while saying the videos in question contained nothing more than “nude images of Defendant’s minor children dancing and acting playful after a bath. ”
After the judge dismissed the charges against him, Hoffner addressed reporters and gave a little more context surrounding the “pornographic” videos. He said two of the videos were shot in June after his children took a bubble bath while he worked downstairs. His children “came down with towels on and asked me if I would videotape them,” Hoffner said. His kids had been working on a skit and wanted their father to record it.
Hoffner said he grabbed his Blackberry from a nearby table and began recording. “It started with their towels on,” he said. “They were singing, dancing and laughing. They were doing silly things, having fun.” The children eventually dropped their towels, and his son jumped in front of his sisters and “grabbed his private parts” in an attempt to sabotage the skit. (*I like this kid already*)
His daughters got upset with their brother and a few minutes later asked him to try recording the skit again. This time, Hoffner’s son pulled what we like to call a Jaded At Church, by running into view wearing nothing more than a football helmet. Hoffner said he thought it was funny, but stopped recording when he realized his son was “determined to mess everything up.” He never watched the videos afterwards, and had forgotten all about them until he was arrested.
Now that this ordeal is over, Hoffner hopes to get his job back. He’d been the school’s head football coach since 2008, but has been on administrative leave after the videos were found. A spokesman for the university said he would remain on leave pending the school’s own investigation and had no timetable for when that could be completed.
Tags: child porn, coach, Crime, Minnesota, Todd Hoffner
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