Joel White, former Lee’s Summit youth soccer coach/aspiring child pornographer, is going away for a long time

In March 2013, Joel White was caught stealing soccer-related merchandise at a World Cup qualifying match in Commerce City, Colorado. The arresting officers suspected that he might be selling the merchandise online, so they confiscated White’s cameras and computer. In reviewing them, they discovered video of an underage female changing clothes in what looked to be White’s home. At that point, they alerted the police department in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, where White resides. LSPD then opened a child-pornography investigation on White. 

White, it turned out, was a youth soccer coach in the Lee’s Summit Soccer Association, coaching under-12 and under-15 girls’ teams. He was using this position of authority to secretly videotape members of his teams. Yesterday, he pled guilty in federal court to three counts of attempting to produce child pornography. 

From the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri:

White admitted that he videotaped 11 child victims without their consent while they were changing clothes in his daughter’s bedroom at his residence. White videotaped the child victims 10 to 15 times without their consent from approximately May 2012 until October 2012, when the victims were between 11 and 12 years of age. White also admitted that he touched one of the child victims on the breast with his hand and mouth while she was sleeping at his residence, and that he recorded this touching.

White is clearly identified in the videos setting up the camera and recovering the camera after the child victims leave the room. In one video, as White recovers the camera, he looks into the camera and gives himself two “thumbs up.”

Yikes. White faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years without parole on each of the three counts, plus a fine of up to $250,000.