Counselor Thomas Jewell, sentenced to 29 years prison, kept porn-laden hard drive under mattress

March 3, 2012

A former staff counselor at a Martinez, California juvenile hall facility has been sentenced to 29 years in federal prison for producing pornography of him molesting two teenaged boys.

54-year-old Thomas Perez Jewell, who lived in Pleasant Hill, was sentenced in an Oakland U.S. District Courtroom to prison after he pleaded guilty to one felony count of producing child pornography.

The Contra Costa District Attorney's Office had charged Jewell on 49 felony counts.

He was also ordered to pay $234,000 in restitution.

Jewell was arrested at his home in Nov. 2010 after being investigated by Martinez, Pleasant Hill and Walnut Creek Police Departments, aided by F.B.I. agents. A grand jury indicted him on Dec. 9, 2010.

An examination of Jewell's home computer files led the D.A.'s office to amend the original single complaint to 46 separate counts of child molestation and one count each of child porn possession, posing a child for the purposes of taking pornographic pictures and showing pornography to a minor, according to Assistant District Attorney Dana Filkowski.

A hard drive hidden under the mattress in Jewell's bedroom contained thousands of images of the juvenile victims, said a U.S. Department of Justice news release this week.

At the time of Jewell's arrest Pleasant Hill PD Lt. Dan Connelly said that the investigation into Jewell began when Martinez Police Detective Dave Mathers received a tip from an unknown source. Connelly and his colleagues conducted an "undercover operation ... [that] identified Jewell as a ... resident who received and distributed child pornography.

Detectives found a very large amount of child pornography on digital storage devices at the residence," said Connelly.

Area F.B.I agents were brought in to sift through what police described as thousands of photographs and videos depicting child porn.

Filkowski said one victim, identified in a criminal complaint as John Doe, was molested over a three-year period. Doe is now aged 16; Filkowski declined to state whether the victim was a past or present resident at the John A. Davis Juvenile Hall facility at 202 Glacier Drive, where Jewell worked.

Contra Costa Health Services, the agency that staffs medical and mental health personnel at various county-run facilities such as the Martinez jail, Contra Costa County Regional Medical Center and juvenile hall, employed Jewell.

In addition to his CCHR employment since January 2002, as stated on his Facebook page, Jewell operated a consulting business--aimed at both adults and teens--called YES Enterprises, since January 2003.

Source: Greta Mart, "Jewell Sentenced To 29 Years In Prison," Martinez News-Gazette, March 3, 2012.