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Police Briefs 10/8/20

Clay County Sheriff's Office
Posted 10/7/20

Clay High janitor pleads guild to filming girls in locker roomJACKSONVILLE – Jason Brian Goff, 44, of Starke, pleaded guilty to attempted production of child pornography. He faces a minimum …

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Police Briefs 10/8/20


Posted

Clay High janitor pleads guild to filming girls in locker room

JACKSONVILLE – Jason Brian Goff, 44, of Starke, 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 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.
One of the girls said she noticed a hole in the locker while her friend dressed and she saw the cellphone through the hole. The lock on No. 152 also had a black face, while the other lockers had green-faced locks.
Goff, who worked at the school for 13 months, is assigned to clean the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms. The state attorney said it appears girls were videoed during the first eight days of the 2019 schoolyear.
Investigators found “selfie” images of Goff on the cellphone. The number for the cell phone also matched the telephone number provided by Goff on his information form required by the school district.
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 and the Clay County Sheriff’s Office arrested Goff on Sept. 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.
The 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.

New charges added after inmate threatens jail deputies

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – A man already in jail after being arrested for burglary now faces additional charges after the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said he threatened to kill to two deputies in the jail.
Adam Charles MacDonald, 37, of Orange Park, was charged with making two threats of death with serious bodily harm to law enforcement officers.
According to the arrest report, MacDonald became disruptive while taking a shower on Sept. 27. When two deputies ordered him to calm down, he said “When I get out of here, I’m going to find [the two deputies] and kill them both!”
Officers then saw him on video trying to sharpen a piece of metal on the floor, which prompted a response from the Corrections Emergency Response Team. CCSO said MacDonald flushed the object before the CERT made entry.
MacDonald originally was charged with burglary on Jan. 9 for breaking into an unoccupied house of a man who recently died.
MacDonald then was charged with battery in a detention facility on Aug. 10 after he approached another inmate while naked. A day later, the same victim said MacDonald tried to choke him while he slept.

Sheriff’s deputies catch man with child porn

ORANGE PARK – A 37-year-old man was charged Oct. 1 with possessing child pornography.
Jonathan Clay Edens, of Orange Park, was arrested following an investigation by the Clay County Sheriff’s Office’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
According to CCSO, Edens had depictions of children conducting sex acts on his computer or cellphone.

CCSO: Middleburg man charged with fondling girl

MIDDLEBURG – A Middleburg man was arrested Oct. 5 for fondling a 13-year-old girl.
Michael R. Barber, 30, was charged with lewd and lascivious behavior toward a victim between 12-16 years old, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office reported.
The victim said Barber touched her inappropriately. He was arrested following a brief investigation.

Man busted for selling fentanyl to CCSO informant

ORANGE PARK – A local man was arrested after he sold fentanyl to a confidential informant with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office.
Darnell Le’Auntae Cole, 38, of Orange Park, was charged with selling a Schedule I narcotic and using his cellphone to facilitate a felony.
According to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, Cole used his phone to set up the fentanyl sale on Blanding Boulevard on Sept. 16. CCSO said Cole sold the informant 1.2 grams of the synthetic narcotic.
The informant set up another buy on Sept. 30 in another parking lot where he was arrested.
His bond was set at $100,006.

One dead after second head-on crash on U.S. 301 in 11 days

MIDDLEBURG – For the second time in 11 days, a person was killed in a head-on crash on U.S. Highway 301 near County Road 218.
The Florida Highway Patrol said a 29-year-old man from Keystone Heights was killed when his northbound pickup veered across the median and hit a car driven by a man from Jacksonville.
The man from Keystone Heights wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and he died on the scene. The man from Jacksonville suffered minor injuries.
FHP no longer releases the names of people involved in accidents.
On Sept. 25, a Starke woman was driving south in the northbound lanes near C.R. 218 when she struck an SUV head-on. The wrong-way woman also wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.