A California man who worked as an IT consultant at a local church was sentenced this week to 40 years in federal prison for secretly recording victims and directing the production of abuse material involving children overseas, years after an earlier conviction for a hidden camera at a youth camp. Here is why a prior record hiding in plain sight matters for a claim.
Reviewed by Abuse Justice Center · Updated 2026-10-28
Figures drawn from federal court records reported by Local 10 News (Miami).
According to court records, the man worked for years as an IT consultant at a community church in California, giving him regular access to computers and technology used by staff and congregants. Prosecutors say he used spyware to secretly record people through their own laptops without their knowledge, and separately directed minors overseas to produce sexually exploitative material.
He was stopped by customs officers at a Florida airport in the summer of 2025 after returning from a trip abroad. Officers reported finding dozens of exploitative videos hidden in a password-protected folder on his phone, along with roughly 160 AI-generated images depicting minors, and prosecutors say at least eight minor victims in the United States were affected, with additional children identified overseas. This week, a federal judge sentenced him to 40 years in prison, calling the scope of the conduct extraordinary.
Long before this sentencing, the same man had already been convicted in 2006 after being caught secretly filming girls changing inside a locker room at an Oregon summer camp. That conviction was a matter of public record, yet he was later hired to work at the local church in a role that put him near families and technology used throughout the building.
A prior conviction like this does not automatically disqualify someone from every future job, but it does put an institution on notice about a specific, known risk. What an organization does, or fails to do, with that kind of information is often where a civil claim against the institution, not just the individual, begins.
This case involves technology, secret recording software and material produced overseas, that can make it feel unusually complex compared to more familiar in-person abuse cases. But the underlying legal questions for a civil claim are largely the same: what access did this person have, who gave it to them, and did anyone with authority over that access know, or have reason to know, about the risk.
Victims connected to material like this, whether recorded secretly on church property or produced under his direction elsewhere, may have civil claims against both the individual and any institution that failed to act on a known history.
If you attended this church, used its facilities or technology, or believe you may have been recorded without consent, you do not need to already know the full scope of what happened to start asking questions about your legal options. The same is true if a similar pattern, a known past conviction followed by continued access to children or families, applies to a different institution.
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Cases involving a known past record raise specific institutional questions that a purely individual case does not.
Abuse Justice Center is a free information resource, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. Ask any attorney how they charge before you agree. Need support now? The RAINN hotline is 800-656-4673, 24/7.
Yes, an attorney can help you understand what is known so far and whether you may be affected.
Not necessarily. Claims connected to a U.S. institution can often proceed even when some conduct occurred abroad.
Potentially, yes, if it knew or reasonably should have known about that history and failed to act on it.
No. The same negligent-hiring principles apply to any institution that retained someone with a known, ignored red flag.