Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


A Howell man has been arraigned on federal child pornography charges.

36-year-old Jacob Sampson is charged in U.S. District Court in Detroit with sexual exploitation of children/selling or buying of children, and activities related to material constituting/containing child pornography. He was formally arraigned on the charges Tuesday.

An FBI investigation revealed Sampson used the app Kik to receive and distribute child sexually abusive material online. The federal complaint, attached, states Sampson allegedly admitted to saving child pornographic images and videos and uploading files to a Dropbox account, with his primary interest being female children age 6 to 13 years old.

Sampson is due back in court for a final pre-trial hearing September 17th.

Separately, it became known that Sampson was a former volunteer coach during the 2023 through 2025 seasons on his children’s soccer teams.


The Howell Area Parks and Recreation Authority earlier released the following statements and clarification:

"To the best of HAPRA's knowledge, these federal charges have nothing to do with Mr. Sampson’s service as a volunteer coach at HAPRA."

HAPRA officials said they want to ensure the public that before permitting anyone to volunteer as a coach, HAPRA diligently runs a complete background check on any proposed volunteer initially and every 2nd year thereafter while they continue to volunteer as a HAPRA coach.

"Thus, Mr. Sampson had an initial background investigation completed on him in 2023 and a follow up background investigation completed on him in 2025 by HAPRA and each check came back clean. There were no red flags disclosed in these background investigations that would have raised to HAPRA any concerns with permitting Mr. Sampson to be a volunteer soccer coach on his children’s soccer teams."

The HAPRA investigations appear to match the news reports that Mr. Sampson had no prior criminal record before the newly reported federal charges.

"During Mr. Sampson’s time serving as a HAPRA volunteer coach on his children’s soccer teams and subsequent thereto, HAPRA, thankfully, has never received any complaints from a patron, parent, or a child regarding any inappropriate conduct by Mr. Sampson."

HAPRA said it will cooperate with any Federal, State, and local requests for information regarding this former volunteer coach. HAPRA maintains its commitment to provide a safe recreation environment for its community, patrons, and their children."

As there are ongoing federal criminal charges against Sampson, HAPRA will have "no further comment on this subject until Mr. Sampson’s criminal referral is concluded."