An investigation into former janitor, John Soffa, started when someone reported seeing him take pictures of teen athletes at a wrestling tournament last December.
According to court documents, the photos were taken at an annual wrestling tournament at Upper Perkiomen High School. After Soffa was spotted taking the pictures, a state trooper questioned him, and according to the court documents, the trooper saw images of naked children in Soffa’s phone.
Soffa admitted to the trooper that he saved pornography on his phone and admitted to collecting images of children in swimsuits and topless young girls, according to the documents.
State police completed a download of Soffa’s phone and reported finding 2,097 images categorized as Child Exploitative Material.
According to the affidavit, the images included toddlers between the ages of 3 and 16 in various stages of undress. It also states that many of the images were deleted by the user in December.
A spokesperson for the Upper Perkiomen School District says Soffa was placed on leave last December and was not allowed on school property during the past eleven months.
School board minutes show that Soffa was terminated in late September of this year, nearly a month before criminal charges were filed on November 5.