Minnesota State-Mankato football coach arrested in child porn case

Impossible to say without seeing the videos, obviously, but I would think the fondling has the potential to be pretty damning. Seems like potentially a tough case to make in court.

People can be really strange about pictures of their own children. I'm Facebook friends with someone I knew in college 20+ years ago. She posted a photo of her three daughters, aged roughly 4 to 9. The caption was "This is what I woke up to this morning!" In the photo the three girls are side by side, naked, facing away from the camera and grabbing their ankles. Someone, presumably Dad, has written "Happy Birthday Mom!" across their butts. Someone commented under the photo that it may not be the kind of thing she should share on Facebook and she replied "If someone is sick enough to see something wrong with this, that's their problem!" You know, like I'm crazy for not wanting to have a picture of the anuses of three prepubescent girls on my Facebook timeline.

 

Coach's wife gave a press conference today, calling charges ridiculous. Also, authorities have not found anything else on any other devices.

http://www.startribune.com/local/167557495.html

 

Somebody in my FB group did something very similar and reacted similarly when several people IMed about it.

They were only a very remote shoestring acquaintance of mine, so I had no problems whatsoever firing off a scathing wall post and immediately defriending them.

I don't deal in kiddie porn; I don't need fucking idiots on FB giving authorities evidence to think I (and everybody else in their friends list) do.

 

There's a really cute picture of yours truly cleaning out the bathtub after giving the youngest a bath. She was just at the walking stage -- I guess she was probably around a year to a year-and-a-half old -- but she'd decided she'd "help" me. So there I am, on my knees with my back to the camera, bending over into the tub and swishing it out, and there she is, right beside me (not bending over, but with her little butt just a-shinin'). The picture, taken by my wife, is priceless. Glad I never scanned it in and put it on Facebook!

 

That's a great picture to be shared between you and your wife. And keep it that way.

 

What's more, you didn't wake the child up for the express purpose of following her to the toilet with camera in hand.

However, the bathtub photo will make great embarrassment material when she starts dating.

 

Oh, I've got some great rehearsal dinner/wedding reception material. Around the same time as the pic I mentioned, my knuckle-headed son, who was maybe four at the time, decided to do a little pretend construction work right after a bath. The picture has him standing there hammering on the wall with a toy hammer, wearing a toy hard hat ... and nothing else.

 

Charges all dismissed, which as I read everything about the story was exactly what should have happened.

http://www.startribune.com/local/181574761.html?refer=y

 

I wonder how the authorities ever got involved in the first place. Weird and scary.

 

Ace, here's a pretty good wrapup of everything from what was on the videos, to the chain of events.

http://mankatofreepress.com/local/x253574881/Witnesses-offer-Hoffner-defense-testimony-in-child-porn-case

To me the prosecutor deserves most of the blame. Hard to blame campus techies in a post-Sandusky world for going to the school. Then them alerting the police.

At all stages it was the prosecutor urging it forward, apparently. Then it was reported there was nothing on his computers. Then social workers did an investigation that showed no signs of abuse. Then a totally plausible explanation for the videos was given. But the prosecutor kept going forward.

Phil Taylor's backpage column in SI last week was about the case although I don't think it's online yet.

And the judge's ruling.

http://mankatofreepress.com/local/x983014379/Child-porn-charges-dropped-in-MSU-football-coach-case

 

An update on this situation. An arbitrator said the school had no right to fire him and ordered him to be reinstated. But Minot State has already hired him to be its new coach. Hoffner will decide tomorrow if he'll return to Mankato or stay at his new gig.

bit.ly/1gy0sPb

 

I hope Hoffner tells Mankato to go fuck themselves.