Van Wert man pleads guilty in federal court to child porn charge
Jan. 18—TOLEDO — A 71-year-old Van Wert man arrested last summer by the Federal Bureau of Investigation has pleaded guilty to child pornography charges.
John Charles Coy appeared in U.S. District Court in Toledo before Judge James Knepp II on Jan. 6 and entered a plea of guilty to the receipt and/or distribution of child pornography.
A pre-sentence investigation was ordered, and a sentencing date of May 2 was set by the court.
A federal search warrant was executed by the Toledo FBI Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force on Aug. 2 at a residence in Ohio City where Coy was known to be residing with his son.
His arrest culminated an investigation initiated by the Marion Police Department into allegations that Coy was taking and receiving sexual photos of juvenile females and engaging in sexual conduct with a juvenile female.
Over the course of the eight-month investigation, according to the complaint, numerous state search warrants and subpoenas were issued on social media, cell phone service providers and digital storage providers identified as being Coy's accounts. Multiple images of young females in various stages of nudity were recovered from those accounts.
Coy is known to have coached juvenile female softball teams over the past years in Marion and Van Wert counties. He is also known to have traveled as a truck driver in the region. He had also traveled on several occasions to the Philippines and had sought and obtained nude photos of young Filipino girls, according to the indictment.
