A Florida district judge has sentenced a convicted sex offender to 220 years in federal prison for making, receiving and possessing child sexual abuse material and hacking the jumbotron at the Jacksonville Jaguars' stadium. sentenced to imprisonment. He was registered as a sex offender.
The United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida announced Tuesday that U.S. District Judge Brian J. Davis sentenced Samuel Arthur Thompson, 53, on this charge. In November 2023, a federal jury found Thompson guilty of producing child sexual abuse material while required to register as a sex offender, in violation of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). He was found guilty of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.
Thompson was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Alabama in 1998 and was required to register as a sex offender.
Federal prosecutors said in a statement that Thompson was hired by the Jaguars around 2013 to help design and install the stadium's main screen and was later tasked with operating the screen on game days.
“Thompson's contract with the Jaguars required him to report the conviction, but he failed to do so. In January 2018, the Jaguars learned of Thompson's conviction and status as a registered sex offender. “Following this review, we have decided not to renew his contract,” the release states. “Prior to the expiration of Thompson's contract in March 2018, Thompson installed remote access software on a backup server in the Jaguars' server room.” He remotely accessed the computer controlling the Jumbotron and caused the video board to repeatedly malfunction.
The Jaguars eventually located a backup server and captured the IP address of an intruder who attempted to remotely control the Jumbotron during their next game in December 2018. The FBI tracked the intruder's IP address to Thompson's residence, according to the release.
In July 2019, the FBI searched Thompson's home and seized a computer and a firearm, which he was prohibited from possessing as a convicted felon. The FBI found thousands of images and hundreds of videos depicting child sexual abuse on Thompson's device, as well as files that show it was used to remotely access a backup server, according to the release. That's what it means.
“Samuel Thompson repeatedly abused and exploited innocent children, causing immeasurable pain to his victims,” Colt Markowski, FBI acting special agent in charge of Jacksonville, said in a statement. “He also abused and exploited his employer by installing malicious software to manipulate their systems, which could have caused even greater harm had it gone undetected.”
In a statement released in November after Thompson's conviction, the Jaguars thanked prosecutors for their work on the case.
(Photo: Perry Knotts/Getty Images)