Youth Wrestling Coach Arrested For Sharing Child Porn Online

A 24-year-old youth wrestling coach and referee from Ocean County, New Jersey was arrested this week after he was accused of sharing child pornography online.

Alec Donovan, of Brick, was arrested Wednesday on charges of receipt and distribution of child pornography, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig said in a statement released on the day of the arrest.

Donovan had used an unnamed messaging application to share videos containing child pornography over the internet, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey (USAO-NJ) said in the statement.

The coach had sent three videos containing images of child sexual abuse and received two videos containing images of child sexual abuse via the web-based messaging application from January to March 2021, prosecutors said in the statement posted on the Department of Justice's website.

The videos Donovan had sent and received also depicted sexual acts involving pre-pubescent children, as per the USAO-NJ.

Donovan appeared via videoconference before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cathy L. Waldor, and the former was released on $100,000 unsecured bond.

The charge of receipt and distribution of child pornography carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Honig credited specials agents of the FBI with the investigation leading to Donovan's charge.

A similar incident happened in late July when a 44-year-old coach at a gymnastics center in Everett, Washington was charged for placing cell phone cameras in a bathroom used by minor students and possessing child pornography.

Patrick Kunz, of Edmonds, was charged on July 26 with first-degree attempted voyeurism and second-degree possession of child pornography.

Kunz had been a coach and head of the surveillance system at Leading Edge Gymnastics Academy in Everett when a hidden phone camera was found in one of the center's bathrooms in December.

A preteen girl reportedly found a paper towel dispenser box with a hole in the corner facing the toilet of the bathroom, and it had a lens of a cell phone camera facing out from inside the hole.

Kunz, who admitted that he had touched the box previously but denied setting up a camera inside it, voluntarily gave authorities his cell phone that had been issued to him by his other employer, an IT business based in King County.

Detectives did not find any videos of minors in the bathroom, but they did find two videos dated Dec. 6 that were pending deletion. Both videos showed a black screen with the sound of a fan that matched the "distinct pattern" of the one in the gymnastics facility's bathroom. Meanwhile, another file allegedly depicted child porn.