The father of a prominent transgender track athlete is facing new child pornography charges after authorities say he was found with images of girls as young as 8 while awaiting incarceration on an earlier child pornography conviction. Marc Jacques, the father of Maëlle Jacques, had used his son’s transgender identity and his own advocacy for transgender rights as mitigating factors in his first trial.
Jacques, a former employee of Dartmouth College, first came to the attention of authorities in February of 2022, when federal child exploitation authorities began investigating a number of reports made through CyberTip – the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s centralized reporting system for the online exploitation of children. The reports were made by Kik Messenger, a freeware messaging platform notorious for its use in facilitating in child sexual abuse.
Kik reported that between November 24, 2021 and December 6, 2021, a Kik user with the username “wayne9985” uploaded 49 files to other Kik users via private chat messages that appeared to depict child sexual abuse material. The account was quickly traced back to Jacques using IP addresses associated with the image uploads. Further investigation revealed that Jacques’ residential IP address in Newbury, New Hampshire, was connected to more than 40 other CyberTips recorded by Reddit, Google, Tumblr, and SendVid between 2018 and 2022.
A search warrant was obtained for Jacques’ home, and, when officers arrived, Jacques admitted to the crime and voluntarily surrendered his electronic devices.
On his laptop, Jacques was found to have stored 162 files containing child pornography, with an additional 60 files on his iPhone, and 6 files on his desktop computer. In one of the videos described by prosecutors, a female child was seen being orally raped.
Because he has two sons he has full custody of, Jacques was not remanded to custody and was instead released with conditions to self-report back to court for his hearings. On February 26, 2024, Jacques pleaded guilty to knowingly distributing child pornography, and waived his right to have his case heard before a grand jury.
On September 9, 2024, Jacques was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison, but was not remanded to immediate custody. Arguing that he had to make arrangements for the care of his children and his own affairs, the court gave him supervised release with an order to voluntarily surrender himself to his designated prison on December 2, 2024.
🚨EXCLUSIVE INFO🚨
— REDUXX (@reduxx) October 19, 2024
The father of a top trans athlete has been convicted of distributing child rape images.
Marc Jacques, father of Maelle Jacques, argued that he should be spared prison so he could continue advocating for his son to play female sports. https://t.co/2zt2IJVxl6
Shortly after being released pending his report date for federal prison, Jacques was arrested again when investigators learned he had continued accessing child sexual abuse material during and after the course of his trial.
Throughout the trial, Jacques had been allowed to remain out of custody and to use three electronic devices he said were necessary for work and personal matters. He had been explicitly informed that all activity on those devices would be monitored by Internet Probation & Parole Control (IPPC), a software firm contracted by the U.S. government to oversee the computer use of individuals under supervision.
IPPC monitoring captured screenshots between August 10 and September 16, 2024, showing Jacques accessing what appeared to be child sexual abuse videos on his work laptop. The monitoring period indicates that Jacques was accessing the illicit material just before he was sentenced as well as the days after sentencing, when he had been released while awaiting incarceration.
According to an affidavit submitted by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Derek Dunn, one of the videos in Jacques’ possession included a girl being anally raped by an adult male, while others featured videos of naked prepubescent and pubescent girls digitally edited to show them being penetrated or abused.
Due to a delay in processing, the screenshots did not come to the attention of the Probation Officer until October 16 – less than one month after Jacques was sentenced in the case of his 2022 charges of child pornography.
Jacques was confronted about the images and surrendered a flash drive, but he insisted it did not contain anything illegal. A preliminary review of the contents on the drive confirmed child sexual abuse material was present, and the drive was sent for a more in-depth analysis. Additional videos were found depicting children as young as 8 being forced to engage in sexual acts.
Jacques was arrested on October 18, and charged with the possession of child pornography on December 30, 2024.
The case has had undergone several extensions as it appears the prosecution and defense are negotiating on a way to navigate issues with discovery and possibly avoid trial altogether by striking a deal. Last week, United States Attorney Erin Creegan filed a request to extend the indictment period until January 26, 2026.
As previously reported by Reduxx, Jacques is the father of Maëlle Jacques, a transgender teenager who had made headlines for demanding the right to play in female sports. Maëlle is a student at Kearsarge Regional High School in New London, New Hampshire, and competes in both soccer and track. Maëlle previously won the girls’ Division II High Jump title in New Hampshire.
His athletic participation has become the center of debate in New Hampshire, where proposed and enacted legislation would ban male students from participating on girls’ sports teams. However, in August of last year, Maëlle’s school board voted to allow him to continue participating in girls’ sports.
In his initial case, Jacques used his son’s transgender identity, as well as his own trans activism, as mitigating factors, and his son penned a letter asking the court to consider a non-custodial sentence for his father. In his letter, Maëlle noted that his mother was unsupportive of his transgender identity, and that without his father he ran the risk of losing the financial support he required to go to college.
“For his rehabilitation as well, the work he’s put into becoming a better person would be stripped away, among the mental distress put upon him by losing his kids. I beg of you to consider the work he’s put in, and the reliance I place upon him as a parent and a necessary figure in my life,” Maëlle wrote.
At the time the letter was being submitted, Jacques would have already been caught by IPPC software accessing new child sexual abuse materials.
Jacques also received letters of support from Dr. Elizabeth Counselman-Carpenter, a professor of social work at Adelphi University, who pointed out that Jacques was a “committed member of his community and LGBTQIA+ activist” in her argument against a custodial sentence.
In October of last year and as a direct result of Reduxx’s reporting on the case, Jacques’ counsel moved to try and have the letters sealed. Dr. Counselman-Carpenter in particular claimed she was so frightened by her character reference for Jacques being made public that she had sought assistance from the police.
The request was partially granted, with the character reference letters Jacques had submitted from his two sons being partially redacted. However, Dr. Counselman-Carpenter’s letter was not altered, along with other letters Jacques had received from friends and colleagues speaking to his ‘upstanding’ character.
The multitude of letters advocating for Jacques and characterizing him as a “low risk” were part of the reason why the court allowed him to remain in the community with a delayed voluntary surrender order.
Jacques also wrote a lengthy letter to the court in his own defense, noting the work he had been doing with the ACLU and GLAAD to support Maëlle’s fight to be allowed to continue participating in girls’ sports.
Significantly, his letter inadvertently revealed that he would have been actively attending meetings with politicians and political organizations with his son even after pleading guilty to the child pornography charges from his 2022 case.
Prior to his arrest, Jacques had been present at almost every public sporting and speaking event attended by his son, meaning he had consistent and regular contact with girls in the age range of the victims found on his devices.
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