Man jailed for taking ‘upskirt’ photos
WEST CHESTER » A former student at Church Farm School who secretly took intimate photographs of teachers at the West Whiteland school admitted he had a sex addiction that he allowed to get out of control while pleading guilty to privacy invasion charges in Common Pleas Court Thursday.
“Working with my therapists has been helpful in under
standing how my actions affected my victims,” said Jamison “Coby” Brenner, whose crimes came to light after police discovered naked photos of a 16-year-old girl on his iPhone during an investigation into his alleged drug dealing.
Acknowledging that his behavior in filming socalled “upskirt” photos of two teachers at his former school was “selfish and immoral,” he offered an apology to the two women who sat in Judge Patrick Carmody’s courtroom for the guilty plea proceeding.
“I realize now the extent of the damage I have done,” said Brenner, a tall, heavyset 20-year-old who graduated from the private school in 2017. “There is no ‘fix-all’ for the harm I have done. I humbly accept my sentence and recognize my crimes.
“It will always be my greatest mistake,” he said.
“It better be,” snapped Carmody, who appeared to be reluctant to accept the negotiated guilty plea for Brenner that saw him sentenced to six to 23 months in Chester County Prison on a single count of invasion of privacy. “It’s creepy. It’s disgusting. And if I ever see you again (in court), you’ll go to state prison.”
Brenner, of East Fallowfield, was found to have taken intimate photos of five victims in all, according to court documents. The plea concerned solely the charges related to the photos of the 16-year-old, but Assistant District Attorney Vince Cocco, who handled the case, told Carmody that he had consulted with all of the victims in the case about the proposed plea. None disagreed with the outcome, he said.
The two female Church Farm School teachers who attended the proceeding did not publicly address the court but sent letters to Carmody which he read beforehand in which they described the “hell” they had been through since learning Brenner had secretly photographed them. Neither did the 16-year-old at the center of the plea, who was not in court but whose father sat and listened tensely as Brenner apologized.
In addition to the prison term Brenner was sentenced to serve as part of a plea agreement worked out between Cocco and defense attorney Dan Bush of the West Chester firm of Lamb McErlane, he was also given five years consecutive probation on a count of corruption of minors. He also pleaded guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia.
Brenner’s photographs were discovered after he was arrested on drug delivery charges by West Chester police. He had sold marijuana to a confidential informant in February and March of 2019. Police then searched the apartment in the 100 block of Dean Street where he was living at the time and found seven ounces of the drug in his room, as well as packaging material, according to a criminal complaint by West Chester Detective Jason Francart.
During the search, Brenner gave police permission to search the contents of his iPhone. When it was examined by forensic analysts from the Chester County Detectives, they found two still images of what appeared to be Brenner pulling aside the clothing of a young female who appeared to be
asleep, exposing her breasts and vagina, said Cocco.
When police later searched Brenner’s laptop computer, they found the
other photos, from Church Farm School and elsewhere. All of the victims were contacted by police and said they had not given Brenner permission to take the photos or to record the videos.
None of the victims were named in the complaint.
Bush said that after he was charged with the marijuana case, Brenner immediately went to drug and alcohol in-patient rehab. When the photos surfaced, he then began sex addiction counseling, even enrolling in a weeklong program in Tennessee.
“He did everything humanly possible to address these problems,” Bush said of his client’s actions after his arrest. “He dove in headfirst. But he had demons that he was dealing with.”
Carmody declined to allow Brenner to be released from prison while serving his sentence to continue working in West Chester, saying that the short length of time he would spend in prison was enough leniency and that seeing him taken from the courtroom to prison would help bring some finality in the matter to the victims. But he said they would continue to feel the crime’s impact.
“There is not full closure for them, because they are going to live with this for the rest of their lives,” the judge said. “You stole their privacy.”