This Utah teen’s success boosted his gymnastics coach — who was secretly filming him undressed

A talented high school gymnast helped put his Utah coach on the national stage, as one of his few students who frequently competed in out-of-state and international meets. But while they were away from home, the coach was secretly filming the teen’s genitals as he was undressed.

And Adam Richard Jacobs did the same to dozens of other children and some adults over several months, according to prosecutors, via a hidden camera he has admitted placing in a restroom at USA Gymnastics World in Woods Cross.

Jacobs is now awaiting sentencing later this month on 17 state-level charges related to videos he made at the gym, after being sentenced in federal court Thursday for filming the teen gymnast outside Utah.

“You put trust in the fact that this adult is going to take care of your son,” that teen’s mother told The Salt Lake Tribune in an interview. “That’s where that huge breach of trust happened.”

The Tribune generally does not name sexual abuse victims without their permission and is not naming the mother to protect the identity of her son, who was a minor when Jacobs filmed him.

Jacobs, formerly a partial owner of USA Gymnastics World, placed a hidden camera in the boy’s hotel rooms and their bathrooms to produce child sexual abuse materials during trips to Texas and Florida, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Utah.

He pleaded guilty to one federal count of transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. Two other counts — of production and possession of child pornography — were dismissed under a plea bargain.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Howard Nielson sentenced Jacobs, 35, to 10 years in a Texas prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release.

Before Nielson handed down the sentence, Jacobs cried as he read from a written statement, at times struggling to speak. He told the courtroom he felt “ashamed” and “embarrassed” by the “damage that I have done.”

“I made really bad decisions to hurt people that I loved and was meant to protect,” Jacobs said. “I betrayed the trust and invaded the privacy of people I deeply care about.”

In a separate plea statement in the state court case, Jacobs admitted to placing a camera disguised as a USB charger in a public restroom at the USA Gymnastics World gym between January 2022 and March 2023. He said he intentionally pointed the camera at the toilet to capture images of children in various stages of undress.

“I wanted to capture these images and videos for my own sexual gratification,” Jacobs said in the statement.

Carl Hollan, who is prosecuting both the federal and state cases against Jacobs, spoke at the federal sentencing about his betrayal of the young gymnasts and their families.

“The coach stands in a unique position in our society, because he has the opportunity and the ability to guide children’s lives and to build them up and help them become something better than they are,” Hollan said.

“Parents place great trust in coaches,” he said, “but that same hand that can support a child who’s learning this skill can also cause significant harm to children, and that’s what we’ve seen in this case.”

‘You wouldn’t do that to somebody you love’

At Thursday’s sentencing, several victims in the federal and state cases and family members sat quietly in the courtroom, many with stoic expressions. One victim looked down and shook his head while Jacobs read his statement.

“I feel like you wouldn’t do that to somebody you love, anyways,” the victim in the remaining federal charge told The Tribune after the hearing. Reacting to Jacobs’ apology, the teen said, “I feel like it was more for himself.”

His mother said that on some trips, Jacobs and her son stayed in Airbnbs together instead of in separate hotel rooms. “I wasn’t aware that this was even something that was happening,” she said. “I think that just gave him ample time to set up cameras in his room.”

She also pointed to the intense relationships that competitive gymnasts have with coaches.

“Gymnastics is kind of a strange sport,” she explained. “It’s almost like they spend more time with their coaches than they spend with you, and you’re not there for a four-hour period every day to watch them.”

Dozens of children and adults filmed

The restroom camera was discovered by a gym employee who alerted police, and Jacobs was arrested in March 2023. The out-of-state images were discovered on devices police seized from the coach, the mother said.

In files from the restroom camera, prosecutors found videos of 120 different people secretly filmed at the gym, Hollan said.

Prosecutors were “very selective” in deciding which recordings to include in the original 33 state court charges, Hollan said, ultimately narrowing it down to 28 minors and five adults.

“We didn’t want to charge anything that there was even a question about,” Hollan said.

Under a plea agreement, however, some of the state charges have been dismissed. Jacobs has pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting at least 15 minors and the voyeurism of two adults, and to recording all of them without their knowledge.

Before finalizing the deal, Hollan said, prosecutors contacted each victim. Many had expressed a desire to move on, while others said they no longer wanted to be involved.

“There’s no additional benefit we would get from him pleading to 28 counts that we don’t get from him pleading [to] the 15,” Hollan said. “So the cost of putting those children through that trauma is not worth any benefit that you could otherwise receive.”

Jacobs is scheduled to be sentenced in the state case on Aug. 21.

Under the plea agreements, Hollan said, the federal and state sentences must be considered by the judges separately. Jacobs could serve as little as 10 years if the state sentence runs concurrently with the federal one, or up to 30 additional years if the judge orders it to run consecutively.

In federal court Thursday, Jacobs’ defense attorney, Curtis Tuttle, told the court that his client is “remorseful” and agreed to plead guilty because he did not want to subject the victims to a trial or further court proceedings.

The mother of the boy in the federal case said the sentence came as no surprise, since it had been discussed at length in advance.

“I think the biggest thing was just emotionally, just kind of seeing him again after two and a half years,” she said. “I think that was what was hard.”

Her son said he’s ready to move forward. After more than two years of waiting for a resolution, he said, “it was good to get closure.”