COOPERSTOWN – Former Cooperstown gym teacher Justin Hobbie, 42, has been sentenced to 200 months in prison for posing as a teen boy on social media to persuade three teenage girls to send him sexually explicit videos of themselves, according to a release from United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith and Kevin Kelly, Special Agent in Charge of the Buffalo Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
“While working as a teacher, Justin Hobbie preyed on teenage girls he met online by pretending to be a teenage boy and pressuring victims to make and send him sexually explicit video,” said Jaquith. “Hobbie has now been held accountable for egregiously exploiting those children over a three-year period.”
COOPERSTOWN – Former Cooperstown Central School gym teacher Justin Hobbie pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual exploitation of a child, nine months after the Department of Homeland Security raided his home and found child pornography on his computer in December 2018, United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith announced in a release.
In pleading guilty, Hobbie, 41, Springfield Center admitted that from 2015 to 2018, he persuaded, induced, enticed and coerced three girls under the age of 16 to transmit live depictions of sexually explicit activity to him. Hobbie then recorded them so he could look at them again, according to the U.S. attorney.
COOPERSTOWN – Today’s detention hearing for Justin Hobbie, 41, the CCS phys-ed teacher facing child pornography charges, has been rescheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 19, in U.S. District Court in Syracuse.
Though he was scheduled for this afternoon, his lawyer, Kimberly Zimmer, Syracuse, requested the adjournment, and Magistrate Judge Therese Wiley Dancks agreed to move it one week.
COOPERSTOWN – At the request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Cooperstown Central School is organizing a meeting Wednesday evening so parents and members of the community can get their questions answered on the Justin Hobbie case.
Attending will be Beth Coombe, who heads the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Albany, and a representative of the National Center of Missing & Exploited Children, according to Supt. of Schools Bill Crankshaw.
COOPERSTOWN – Cooperstown Central schools’ “crisis response teams” at the elementary and junior-senior high school levels have prepared an “excellent plan” to address concerns students and staff may have as the result of Friday’s arrest of phys-ed teacher Justin Hobbie on charges of distributing child pornography.
In a message sent to the community at 6:04 p.m., Supt. of Schools Bill Crankshaw said both teams had met today to discuss the “very serious charges” against Hobbie, 41, who was arrested at his Springfield Center home by state police and officers of the federal Department of Homeland Security.
COOPERSTOWN – The Cooperstown Central School physical-education teacher arrested this morning received and distributed child pornography over the Internet, the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District confirmed in a just-issued press release.
The teacher, Justin Hobbie, 41, Springfield Center, used peer-to-peer file-sharing services, a federal crime, the statement alleges. An initial review of Hobbie’s desktop computer allegedly revealed numerous incriminating files.
He appeared today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thérèse Wiley Dancks. She ordered him detained pending a hearing, scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12, in Syracuse Federal Court.
COOPERSTOWN – Justin Hobbie was identified as the phys-ed teacher arrested on child-pornography charges a few minutes ago in a telephone message to parents from Supt. of Schools Bill Crankshaw.
“There is no evidence this arrest and charge involves any children of Cooperstown Central School,” Crankshaw said, adding, “All steps are being taken to ensure the safety of our students and faculty.”
