COLUMBUS, Ohio — A former high school assistant volleyball coach who was caught with hundreds of images and videos of child pornography was sentenced Thursday in federal court to 23 years in prison.
Clay Thomas Wolfe, 28, of Junction City, Ohio, pleaded guilty in April to sexually exploiting minors and possessing child pornography. He was arrested in June 2023 while working at New Lexington High School in Perry County, southeast of Columbus.
According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio, Wolfe used the social media app Snapchat to pose as a 15-year-old girl named Ally since 2018. While posing as Ally, Wolfe obtained hundreds of sexually explicit videos and images showing minor male victims, some as young as 10 years old.
Wolfe solicited child pornography from more than 300 victims, prosecutors say. About 100 of the victims are from multiple states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
Authorities began investigating Wolfe in April 2022 when a sixth-grader in Pennsylvania began sharing a nude photo of a classmate that he had received from “Ally,” the news release says. Wolfe would send photos of a young female’s naked breasts and genitalia in order to convince victims to send him nude and sexually explicit images and videos, authorities say.
When he obtained images, he would use them to extort his victims, threatening to send them to family and friends if they didn’t cooperate, prosecutors say.
In total, Wolfe received approximately 850 images and 570 videos depicting child pornography. Wolfe was arrested and charged federally in June 2023.