Report: Sex doll buy led to arrest
Purchase of childlike sex doll on eBay led to a criminal investigation; police also allege he Photoshopped students’ faces onto nude images
SAN JOSE >> Alarmed when a user bought a child-like sex doll, eBay notified authorities, sparking a criminal investigation that led to the childporn arrest of a former a longtime high school track coach, newly released court documents show.
Sex-crimes detectives also contend that Clinton Pappadakis, 47, admitted to using Photoshop software to superimpose the faces of some of his track students onto images of naked adults, seemingly for sexual gratification, according to a report from the San Jose Police Department.
The San Jose resident and recent Oak Grove High School coach was arraigned on a felony charge of possessing matter depicting a person under 18 engaging or simulating sexual conduct. Pappadakis, who is out of custody on his own recognizance, could face up to five years in prison and would have to register as a sex offender for life if convicted.
In a bizarre twist, the same
week of his February arrest, Pappadakis’ twin brother Clifford, a crosscountry coach at Willow Glen Middle School, was arrested in an unrelated investigation and charged with possessing child porn.
Pappadakis’ attorney did not return calls for comment on Wednesday.
When police announced his Feb. 20 arrest, they said Pappadakis was reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for “suspicious activity” last September. The Alexandria, Virginia-based nonprofit forwarded the information to the SJPD/Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which launched an investigation.
In shocking detail, the police report and search warrant that accompany the charging documents shed light on that alleged activity. The original tip to NCMEC was from eBay, which expressed alarm over the auction purchase of “a doll that was made to look like a child,” according to a search warrant affidavit. A description accompanying the doll listing outlined sexually explicit uses for the item.
Investigators said they identified other troubling purchases associated with the email address — which they later linked to Pappadakis — including form-fitting and adult-styled clothing for children.
Further investigation of the associated IP address also linked it to 73 downloads of “known child pornography,” according to the affidavit. Detectives obtained a search warrant for a South San Jose condominium linked to the IP listing, which was also Pappadakis’ residence.
They detained Pappadakis, who is listed in the police report as a Microsoft employee, as he was walking in front of his home. During an on-site interview with him, police say Pappadakis described himself as a coach and amateur photographer, and “denies taking nude photographs or sexual videos of children.”
But a detective states that later in the interview, Pappadakis admitted he would “alter images he takes of his students,” specifically that he “takes the head and face of the students from the images and places them on the body of a nude ‘adult.’ ” The defendant reportedly also told the detective that he “would try to masturbate to the altered images” but that “they did not do it for him,” suggesting he did not gain and sexual gratification from the practice.
When the detective asked why Pappadakis continued to produce the altered images, he reportedly responded, “I do not know.”
Pappadakis also told detectives that he has downloaded child pornography since at least 2013, according to the police report.
When asked about the child-like sex doll, he told a detective that he bought it because it was what he “could afford at the time.” Pappadakis also reportedly told police that he “has used the child-like sex doll numerous times, but that it ‘disgusts’ him because it ‘resembles a child.’ “
But in a sudden afterthought, he reportedly told a detective “he continues to have intercourse with the child-like sex doll,” according to the police report.
Police seized numerous laptop computers, hard drives, VHS tapes, cameras and photos from Pappadakis’ home and car, according to the search warrant. They also confiscated a Batgirl costume, a pink “Hello Kitty” handbag, and a pink girls backpack from his car, according to the warrant.
The police report includes an interview with one of the students whose face was superimposed on one of the nude images purportedly altered by Pappadakis. The student identified herself in at least one of the images, but also said that she didn’t know of any inappropriate relationships her coach had with any students.
She told detectives that the images made her feel “uncomfortable” and “sad.”
“I trusted a fake person.”