Former Student Sentenced for Having Images of Children

SAN ANGELO— A former Angelo State University student has taken a plea deal after he was caught in possession of obscene images of children.

William Brody Hoak, 20, has accepted a plea deal for possession of child pornography.

According to court documents, on September 27, 2020, and November 13, 2020, the Tom Green County Sheriff’s Office received a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that an unknown person had uploaded one video, six pictures, and 2 GIF images that contained suspected child pornography to Google Drive, an online storage service.

Google provided the suspected images and information showing the account holder’s name, Hoak, and an address at the 4100 block of Crestridge Drive in Midland, Texas. Credit cards and a phone number were also attached to the account.

Investigators conducted a CLEAR search for Williams Hoak and were provided information that he was a former student at Angelo State University and stayed in campus housing during the Fall 2020 semester. Investigatos also received two IP addresses that were used to upload the lewd images, and both were registered to Angelo State.

An interview was conducted with Hoak and he stated the Google account belonged to his and that he did live in ASU campus housing during the Fall 2020 semester. Hoak told investigators that he found the media files that contained child pornography on Tumblr, a social media platform, saved them to his phone, and uploaded them to his Google account.

Hoak admitted to the investigator that some of the media files contained images of girls that looked like they were approximately six years old and that he kept the files in his Google Drive account for about a week, then deleted them because “it felt wrong”.

The nine images were of six to 10-year-old girls and boys in sexual performance and posing in sexually suggestive ways with their private areas exposed to the cameras.

In exchange for the guilty plea, Hoak received a sentenced of five years deferred adjudication.