NEWS RELEASE
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
WESTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA

John L. Brownlee
United States Attorney
Heidi Coy
Public Affairs Specialist BB&T Building
310 1st Street, S.W., Room 906
Roanoke, Virginia 24011
(540) 857-2250
FAX (540) 857-2180

February 1, 2007

FORMER ALBEMARLE HIGH SCHOOL SOCCER COACH PLEADS GUILTY TO CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
AND ENTICEMENT CHARGES

Charlottesville, VA —Former girls soccer coach Raja Charles Jabbour, age 40, of Charlottesville, Virginia pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography, receiving and attempting to receive child pornography, and enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity, United States Attorney John L. Brownlee of the Western District of Virginia and Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice announced today.

“We will not allow criminals like Mr. Jabbour to prey upon our children. We are committed to prosecuting and punishing those who abuse our children in this manner to the fullest extent of the law,” said United States Attorney John Brownlee.

The plea was entered today before Magistrate Judge B. Waugh Crigler in United States District Court in Charlottesville.

Jabbour was originally charged in a one-count Indictment with possession of child pornography. Jabbour pled guilty to a four-count Superseding Information charging him with possession of child pornography, enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity, receiving and attempting to receive child pornography, and forfeiture.

According to evidence presented by Assistant United States Attorney Nancy Healey, today, during prior court proceedings, and as set forth in previously filed documents, Jabbour, a former girls soccer coach for Albemarle High School and for a local soccer league, was first arrested in Ohio on January 18, 2004 after he traveled to Ohio to meet with a woman posing as a was a mother who was interested in having a man help teach her two young girls about sex. The woman was actually an undercover officer that Jabbour had been having sexually explicit chats with online since November 2003.

When Jabbour was interviewed in 2004 after his Ohio arrest, he admitted to searching for, observing, and recording webcam videos of adults having sex with children and children having sex with children via the internet. He also admitted transmitting child pornography in the past. Two desktop computers belonging to Jabbour at that time were soon thereafter recovered and searched and revealed hundreds of disturbing child pornography images and movie files, as well as very sexually explicit online conversations that Jabbour had had with minor girls. There were also stories about children engaged in sex.

Jabbour was indicted in Charlottesville for the child pornography found on the computers that were recovered in 2004 and he was arrested in Charlottesville, Virginia, on April 26, 2006. Another computer was recovered at the time of his 2006 arrest.

Agents executed a search warrant in May 2006 and recovered a laptop computer that he had brought to Ohio back in 2004. The two computers that were recovered in 2006 were also searched and revealed images of child pornography. The computer analysis revealed that he had viewed at least one image as recently as the week of his arrest. Although there were fewer images on the new computers, there were numerous chat logs of very sexual online conversations that Jabbour had with minor girls as young as 12. He had many online conversations with a real midwestern child (a 12-year old girl) during which he asked her to engage in sexual acts and send him images and movies of these acts. His “new” computers also had very disturbing stories of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Jabbour’s plea agreement calls for the district judge to sentence him to nine years in prison. He is to be deported upon release but will be subject to lifetime supervision in the event he reenters the United States after his prison sentence has been completed.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Tuscarawas County (Ohio) Sheriff’s Office. C.D. Wells, of the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office and formerly with the Virginia State Police, conducted the forensic examinations of the four computers. Assistant United States Attorney Nancy Healey and Trial Attorney Myesha Braden of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice are prosecuting this case.

In February 2006, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announced Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorneys Offices, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as identify and rescue victims. The Jabbour case is included in the types of cases targeted by Project Safe Childhood. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit: www.projectsafechildhood.gov.