A man accused of sexual exploitation of children appears to have stolen Greeley Police Department hard drives that contained child sexual abuse material while working for the City of Greeley information technology department.
Jacob Schmidt, 35, faces eight counts of sexual exploitation of a child, according to Colorado court records. City officials declined to answer questions about his employment status.
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A Weld County Sheriff’s Office detective began investigating Schmidt in late February after receiving a report about him from Internet Crimes Against Children — a national network of task forces dedicated to investigating and prosecuting cybercrime against children, the affidavit stated.
In March, the detective learned of several more tips reported to NCMEC about Schmidt. While reviewing the files, the detective found several photos and videos of young girls performing sexual acts on each other and of sexual acts between young girls and adults, according to the affidavit. The files dated back as far as 2022, court records show.
On June 11, detectives went to Schmidt’s city workplace, seized his phone and asked him to come to the sheriff’s office for an interview.
During the interview, he told detectives that he did watch child sexual abuse material because he was addicted to pornography but always deleted it immediately, according to the affidavit. He also admitted to taking hard drives from the Greeley Police Department, but he said “he was not sure” if they contained child sexual abuse material, according to the arrest affidavit.
He told detectives that he took the hard drives from Greeley Police without authorization, then transferred the files to his personal cellphone using a hard drive reader, the affidavit stated.
Greeley police said they could not comment on how he accessed the drives, citing the active investigation.
Schmidt is scheduled for an advisement hearing on June 24. He is in custody at the Weld County Jail on a $150,000 bail.
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