Former Duluth ski coach charged with possessing child porn
Dec. 23—DULUTH — Tips from a software giant led state and local police to a Duluth ski coach who, they claim, said he viewed child pornography.
John David Degelau, 27, of Duluth, is charged with four counts of felony possession of pornographic work. He was arrested Wednesday and booked at the St. Louis County Jail. His first appearance in State District Court in Duluth was Friday.
Degelau told police on March 8 that he looked at "child sexual abuse material" images and used Adobe Photoshop software to transpose images of other children onto some of those images, according to a search warrant filed in March in State District Court.
Degelau coached the freestyle ski team for Team Duluth, a private youth ski team at Spirit Mountain that draws kids from across the region.
San Francisco-based Adobe Systems Inc., which produces popular video and image editing software, submitted a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on May 4, according to the application for the warrant.
The company claimed that files identified as child pornography were uploaded the week before via one of its products.
Cloud-based companies compare images uploaded to their systems to databases of known child pornography. If there's a match, they capture the file and information about the user who uploaded it, then forward it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a federally established nonprofit that, in turn, reviews and sends those tips to law enforcement.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension sent a subpoena to Charter Communications that indicated the IP address that uploaded the photos to Adobe's cloud belonged to Degelau.
The uploaded files contained images of prepubescent and pubescent males, all of whom were "totally naked and exposing their genital area," according to the warrant application, which was written by Shanda Braun, a Duluth police investigator assigned to a Twin Ports task force that investigates crimes involving child pornography and child exploitation.
Some photos depicted "graphic sexual assault," including men assaulting boys.
Investigators located images Degelau allegedly modified by "photoshopping" the faces of juveniles known to him onto the downloaded images. He also "photoshopped" images of his own genitalia onto other images, court documents show.
In early August, a second tip went through the same channels, and Adobe reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a user uploaded files that were identified as child pornography.
Braun obtained a warrant to search Degelau's Skyline Parkway house, and on March 8, seized three laptops, a camcorder, drone, hard drive, tablet, camera bag and iPhone, according to the warrant's receipt.
During a subsequent interview, Degelau said the emails attached to each account were his, and that he looked at child pornography during "his 'dark period,'" Braun claimed in the application for a second search warrant, approved March 10.
"He said he believed the images he viewed and altered in Adobe Photoshop were automatically backed up to Adobe Cloud Services," Braun wrote.
According to court documents, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identified victims in 790 images and 34 videos. Degelau possessed a total of approximately 18,000 images, many of unidentified victims.
Duluth police notified Team Duluth leaders on March 10 that Degelau was under investigation.
"We immediately terminated his coaching contract with Team Duluth and banned him from having any contact with our team and athletes," Team Duluth said in an emailed announcement this week.
In March, Team Duluth reported the investigation to the U.S. Center for SafeSport and began working with police and the Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault, or PAVSA.
SafeSport is a nonprofit established in the wake of the Larry Nassar abuse scandal at Michigan State University. The center maintains
a public database of coaches
who have been sanctioned by it or are subject to temporary restrictions while they are investigated.
Degelau was added to the SafeSport database on April 12 and listed as temporarily suspended on allegations of misconduct.
All Team Duluth coaches are licensed, undergo background checks and must complete annual SafeSport training, the team's announcement read. Degelau reportedly completed and passed all required training.
"Our club will be arranging a presentation by a PAVSA advocate to provide education and offer their support services to all team families who want to attend," the team's announcement read. "PAVSA provides support not only to victims, but also to secondary survivors and can provide education and resources to families around how to talk to our children about sexual abuse and will assist survivors in following the criminal justice process in cases like these."
Judge Nicole Hopps set Degelau's bail Friday at $100,000. Further court dates have not been set.
