Todd HoffnerA Minnesota State football coach is in some seriously hot water for what he and his wife say are some innocent videos he took of his own children. According to KEYC-TV, Hoffner has been charged with two felony accounts related to child pornography after questionable videos of the couple's children -- ages 5, 8, and 9 -- were found on his phone.
In a statement yesterday, his wife, Melodee Hoffner, said they are shocked by the charges, and had no idea at first why her husband was placed on administrative leave. Then last Tuesday he was arrested. Police say the videos were found when he took his school-issued phone into school officials because it wasn't working. They gave him a new phone and said a technician would get the pictures and videos from the old phone and get them to him, but in the process the technician found the questionable material and contacted authorities.
Melodee, a licensed school counselor, spoke out yesterday:
The charges against my husband are ridiculous and baseless. My family does what every family does -- we take videos and pictures of our kids in all their craziness. My husband would not ever abuse our children or any other children.
The New York Daily News described the content of the videos, which mostly sound pretty harmless -- the kids in towels with their backs to the cameras, and then they drop them. In another the kids are dancing naked. In a third one of the daughters is filmed walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night, but she is clothed. The only thing that sounds questionable is that in the first video the boy "fondles his penis" and the two girls "bend over with their buttocks facing the camera and pull their buttocks apart, exposing their anuses toward the camera." Even that could be explained in the right context though I suppose -- silliness getting out of control, perhaps.
Maybe there's more than we know, and if it is child porn, I hope he's swiftly and harshly punished. But I don't know ... I am inclined to believe them when they say there's nothing untoward about them. This seems like it could be a case of something very innocent being blown way out of proportion.
My kids do all sorts of crazy things too, and I'm always grabbing my camera or taking a quick video. Often someone is in a various state of undress, and I don't think too much about it, though I am extra conscientious when it comes to posting anything like that on Facebook or elsewhere publicly. But on my own phone? Just to show my husband or something, I wouldn't be too concerned if I captured my 3-year-old doing a naked dance, or my 9-year-old's pants falling off his bare bottom. Or at least I wouldn't have been. This makes me totally rethink that.
Without seeing the videos, it's hard to form too much of an opinion as to their innocence. However, based on the way the videos were found and the wife's statement, I want to believe this is a case of a well-meaning quest to thwart child pornography gone horribly wrong at the expense of a family.
KEYC - Mankato News, Weather, Sports -
Does this make you rethink the kinds of pictures and videos you take of your children?
Image via KEYC-TV
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Comments 74
i do agree photos are ok if they are appropriate but on your own camera. Never a phone let alone a school owned phone. now why would he need it on his phone? is he showing these pictures to people? that is my concern. what may be innocent to some can be porn for someone that finds or steals a phone.
My goodness this country is insane. Everyone and everything needs to be handled with kids gloves. You can't even take pictures and videos of your own kids acting crazy because someone might get the wrong impression. You can't walk into the gas station to pay for your gas because your kid is in the car sleeping. So, you have to wake them up, get them out and walk in to drop off your money on the counter. Why? Because you might be called in for child abuse for leaving them in the car for a minute and a half. We aren't even safe to raise our own children without the fear of being labeled a child abuser for normal every day behavior.
Well first off why would you take these videos on a phone supplied to you from school? Second, how come the boy is playing with his winky in one video and the other kids spreading their butts? The only thing that I can imagine is that they were told/asked to do that for the camera. This guy is sick and twisted in a number of ways. I'm sure that there is more to this story than what is actually being told here. It also sounds to me like the wife is trying to make what the videos show clearly as something innocent. In my opinion, behaving the way these kids did on camera/video through a phone is not innocent at all. He needs to be investigated and hopefully he and his wife get the kids removed from the home before anything else happens to them. I'm sure that things are going on in the home that need to be looked at very hard.
This is crazy. I have recorded my son and nephew doing the "nakie dance" many times. I used to send the videos to my mom cause we would laugh at how silly they were being, but in no way was it sexual. Absurd!
I think if he took pictures of the kids doing poses like that, he was being pretty irresponsible. Granted, parents thing "everything is cute" but in reality, there are just some things you don't publish. Maybe they shouldn not be punished but I don't think it was very bright of them --even for the sake of their kids.
I find it very disturbing that so many parents that have postd about this say that this happens in their homes all the time.REALLY??? I find it very sick that 5 and 8 year old little girls are running around naked in front of their Dad and bending over pulling their butt cheeks apart to show their anus ,while being photographed by Dad and this is quite common ????He is a coach and knowing this of him I would never allow him near my kids,that is not normal behavior ...no father should ever be seeing his kids pose that way ever.How about teaching your kids to respect themselves and their bodies and that NO ONE has the right to violate them???This is just wrong in so many ways.....