The Jaguars' Jumbotron Somehow Helped Bring a Sex Offender to Justice

Former TIAA Bank Field jumbotron operator Samuel Thompson was indicted on Thursday, and the story behind his apprehension are as wild as they are unlikely. It was nothing less than malfunctions with the jumbotron at the Jacksonville Jaguars' home stadium that led to an investigation that revealed Thompson's possession of child pornography and an unregistered firearm.

The 49-year-old Thompson, a sex offender, worked for the Jacksonville Jaguars from April 2017 through February 2018. During his tenure there, multiple malfunctions with the jumbotron occured. According to the regional US Attorney's Office, he was rsponsible for numerous transmissions electronic code and programs that “caused damage without authorization to protected computers.”

A computer account believed to be Thompson's was used to log into the jumbotron’s system remotely to send commands to a "rogue" server in the team’s computer room. That resulted in jumbotron outages, prosecutors said.

That's when things got interesting.

The FBI then serviced a search warrant for Thompson's home in July, and found a .38-caliber revolver that was unregistererd. A forensic review of his cellphone and two computers revealed multiple image depicting child sexual abuse.

It was also revealed that Thompson already was a registered sex offender in the state of Alabama for sodomy on a child in 1998, and he never registered as a sex offender when he moved to Florida.

If Thompson is convicted on all counts, he faces up to 100 years in federal prison, notes the Florida Times-Union.