Darren Frank McCoy, elderly 55, has pleaded accountable on December 1, 2022, to distributing child pornography and taking illegal movies and pictures of youngsters. According to a news free up from the Justice Department, McCoy labored as a gymnastics and cheerleading coach at Metroplex Gymnastics and Swim in Allen and at Top Dog Cheer in Montgomery, Alabama. Metroplex is an established order that describes itself on-line as a website online for birthday events and different occasions for kids. Top Dog Cheer appears to be closed now.
On November 30, 2019, Homeland Security Investigations brokers in Galveston had searched McCoy after the cruise send he used to be on boarded the Galveston Port, the news free up states. The brokers were having a look for McCoy in line with main points from a prior child pornography case from 2015. During the quest, they came upon a Lenovo computer containing pictures of child pornography in McCoy’s ownership.
Following the computer’s findings, government additionally seized different digital gadgets, together with McCoy’s iPhone XR, which contained “numerous pornographic images,” in step with the United States Attorney’s Office.
The US Attorney’s Office additionally states that 9 movies on McCoy’s flash power seem to have been taken by way of hidden digital camera. These movies, relationship again to April 2013, display youngsters converting their garments and bathing in a residential rest room, gymnasium, and lodge for a cheerleading pageant. One of the kids within the movies used to be a minor on the time they have been taken.
The Justice Department’s news free up additionally states that two extra hidden recording gadgets have been came upon in McCoy’s house in McKinney.
Authorities discovered a complete of 10 movies and 290 pictures of child pornography on McCoy’s gadgets. These movies and pictures comprise kids elderly between one and 8 years outdated, with some movies depicting them undressed and situated in a “hospital, mortuary, or morgue-type setting.”
McCoy will stay in custody till he’s transferred to a facility operated by way of the United States Bureau of Prisons.
“Darren McCoy is the definition of a predator,” mentioned US Attorney Alamdar Hamdani within the free up. “We encourage our children to engage in sports, believing that they will be safe when doing so.”
Instead, Hamdani mentioned, “This so-called coach surreptitiously recorded teens and sexually abused a minor for several years.”
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