By NICK VLAHOS
For The Prairie News
PEORIA – For years in Stark County, Jason Musselman led a double life, according to criminal prosecutors and his victims. They said he damaged dozens of other lives in the process.
As a result, Mussleman will be kept behind bars for what will likely be most of his remaining life.
During a hearing Wednesday morning in U.S. District Court, Judge James Shadid sentenced Musselman to 35 years in federal prison. Late last year, the 35-year-old Toulon resident pleaded guilty to three felony child-pornography charges.
A one-time pillar of the community, Musselman received a 25-year sentence for production of child pornography. He also received 10-year sentences for each of the other charges – distribution of child pornography and possession of child pornography.
Sentences for the latter two charges are to be served concurrently, but that and the porn-production sentence are to be served consecutively, Shadid said. Musselman is to be on supervised release after completing his prison term.
The sentences fulfilled the prosecution’s request for Musselman to serve at least 30 years in prison. He also was ordered to pay about $60,000 in restitution.
“The community of Toulon is a better and safer place without the defendant,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Schryer said.
Musselman was accused of taking surreptitious photographs of unclad underage girls who used a tanning bed at his Toulon residence. Musselman earned the girls’ trusts through years of his community service.
“By your conduct, you sentenced one group to a life sentence of their own,” Shadid said. “This appears to me not to be some passing fancy.”
Musselman did not address the court verbally, although he did provide Shadid with a letter. Shadid did not read it aloud during the hearing. Clad in an orange jail-issued jumpsuit, Musselman was shackled afterward and led away.
According to Shadid, Musselman is to be incarcerated at the Federal Correction Institution in Elkton, Ohio. The facility located northwest of Pittsburgh specializes in treatment programs for sex offenders.
Musselman was indicted in March 2022. Investigators discovered more than 250 child-pornography images on his Apple iPhone and more than 400 images on a digital memory card found at his home. They included multiple images of children younger than 12, according to prosecutors.
Tanning-bed videos focused on the subjects’ genitals, prosecutors said. Additionally, Musselman transported images across state boundaries via a mobile-messaging platform.
Of those Toulon-area girls Musselman photographed, 10 provided victim-impact statements. They included six who addressed the court in person – sometimes in halting, teary tones. Those six now are adults, although they were not identified by name in court.
Their statements were similar. The victims accused Musselman of using his status in the community to further his prurient interests. Musselman was a Toulon alderman, a newspaper publisher, a disc jockey and was affiliated with local not-for-profit organizations including as a public-address announcer for Stark County High School football and basketball.
“I believe he was living a completely different life behind doors,” one victim said.
Said another: “People, businesses loved him. His good character is completely fake.”
Victims also criticized Musselman’s family and others in Toulon who wrote letters of support for Musselman. Such support made the victims feel betrayed and angry.
“Being in Toulon … makes me sick to my stomach,” one victim said.
Defense attorney Kevin Sullivan acknowledged his client’s misdeeds. He said Musselman’s family probably will suffer financially and emotionally and be stigmatized in the Toulon community. Sullivan also asked for leniency. He said the prosecution-preferred sentence for Musselman exceeded that for first-degree murder in some states.
“Nobody died. He’s 35 years old,” Sullivan said. “He’s an intelligent person. He is capable of being rehabilitated.”
Earlier, Shadid denied a request from Musselman to withdraw his guilty plea on the production-of-child-pornography charge. Musselman argued the images he produced do not qualify as sexually explicit conduct – that the victims’ pubic areas were not the focus, among other claims.
According to an opinion issued May 15, Shadid noted Musselman angled his phone specifically to record the victims’ genitalia and edited still images to best capture them.
“The images were clearly intended and designed by Defendant to elicit a sexual response in the viewer,” Shadid wrote.
