An ex-Greeley city IT worker is headed to prison for 14 years after taking police evidence hard drives and downloading videos containing child sexual abuse material to his phone. The sentence closes a case that began with tips about what investigators found on that phone—and raises a troubling question about who could reach sensitive evidence inside a police department.
Jacob Schmidt, a former employee of the City of Greeley’s Information Technology Department, was sentenced last Wednesday to 14 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections, according to CBS Colorado. Prosecutors said he removed the hard drives from the Greeley Police Department’s evidence collection even though he was not authorized to access them, then moved the files to his phone.
The case first surfaced publicly after Schmidt’s June 11, 2025, arrest. At the time, North Forty News reported that detectives had been working from multiple Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force tips and that a Weld County judge set Schmidt’s bond at $150,000. Investigators identified him as the suspect in a months-long inquiry into online child exploitation.
From Police Evidence To A Prison Sentence
Schmidt pleaded guilty in March to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, CBS Colorado reported. The Weld County Sheriff’s Office said investigators determined he obtained the videos by taking the hard drives about four months before his arrest, while the Weld County District Attorney’s Office said he downloaded the material to his phone.
“The exploitation of children is one of the gravest offenses our office prosecutes,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Arynn Clark said. She added that Weld County would prosecute crimes involving child exploitation “to the fullest extent of the law.”
The case is not simply about illicit files on a personal device. The material came from police evidence, meaning the alleged access involved a breach of the boundary separating sensitive investigative records from an employee’s ordinary technology duties.
Greeley Evidence Security Now In The Spotlight
The Greeley Police Department had not responded by publication to questions about whether the case prompted changes to its evidence-security procedures. That leaves the public with the sentencing result, but fewer details about how the drives were accessible in the first place.
For now, Schmidt’s 14-year sentence is the clearest outcome of the case. It also serves as a sharp reminder that digital evidence does not become less sensitive simply because it is stored on a hard drive rather than locked in a traditional evidence room.
