An Osceola man who was arrested in May for a variety of offenses is now facing eight charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and one charge of invasion of privacy.
During a search warrant executed by Clarke County Sheriff’s Department at Jesse Woltz’s home, 2013 Highway 69, Osceola, on May 26, officers seized a cell phone that was in Woltz’s possession. A search warrant for the data extraction of the cell phone was executed on May 27, as sheriff’s deputies determined the phone to be relevant to an ongoing harassment case based on the time frame of the crimes.
On the phone there were over 22,000 images and 350 videos stored. As deputies looked through the images, they came across several that were known to be contraband as they contained child sexual abuse material. All of the CSAM images were located within the same folder as the other explicit images in plain view.
On June 5, deputies concluded searching through the extracted data and created a report on the findings. After meeting with Clarke County Attorney Johanna Olson, who confirmed CSAM, deputies met with a medical professional to confirm and narrow down the ages of the minor children in the images. Eight of 10 images analyzed were confirmed to be female minors under the age of 18 with some as young as 10.
Based on the findings, a warrant for Woltz’s arrest for purchase/possess depiction of minor in sex act first offense was issued June 23 with no bond set until initial appearance.
During the same search of Woltz’s phone, deputies came across a video which contained one of Woltz’s harassment victims. In the video, the victim was nude and did not appear to know she was being video recorded or photographed. Deputies contacted the victim who confirmed she did not know about the video nor consent to it being taken.
Having met all three requirements for invasion of privacy per Iowa code 709.21 – the other person does not consent to being filmed, the other person is in a state of full or partial nudity and the other person has a reasonable expectation of privacy while in a state of full or partial nudity – an additional arrest warrant for invasion of privacy was issued June 23 with no bond until initial appearance.
On June 28, sheriff’s deputies were contacted by the Osceola Police Department about movement at Woltz’s residence involving multiple people and a stock trailer. Deputies asked officers to keep an eye out for Woltz as they proceeded to the residence. Officers talked to an individual pulling the stock trailer, who advised Woltz was at his property. Deputies advised officers to proceed with serving the search warrant, who attempted to locate Woltz. Deputies also attempted to locate Woltz and determined he was hiding somewhere on his property.
With the belief Woltz would attempt to leave knowing law enforcement were attempting to locate him, an application for a search warrant was filed and granted. Officers were able to execute the search warrant to locate Woltz and arrest him on both warrants.
Woltz had his initial appearance June 29. Bond was set or continued at $100,000 cash only for the charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and $2,000 for invasion of privacy.
On June 29, trial information for Woltz was filed with eight counts of “purchase/possession depiction of minor in sex act - first offense”, described as “knowingly purchase or possess a negative, slide, book, magazine or other print or visual medium depicting a minor, engaged in a prohibited sexual act or simulation thereof.” In Iowa, the charges for first time offenders is a Class D felony. Iowa Code 902.9 lists a Class D felon as a person who is not a habitual offender, shall be jailed for no more than five years and sentenced to a fine of $1,025 to $10,245.
A preliminary hearing scheduled for July 8 was canceled by request of Woltz’s legal council. Woltz filed a written arraignment and a plea of not guilty July 9; he did not waive his right to a speedy trial. Arraignment is scheduled for 9 a.m. July 24 at the Clarke County Courthouse.
The charge of invasion of privacy is an aggravate misdemeanor.
Prior arrest and charges
On May 26, the Osceola Police Department arrested Woltz on a warrant for six counts of harassment, first degree and ongoing criminal conduct - unlawful activity. He was additionally charged with two counts of dominion/control of a firearm by a domestic abuse offender; possession of a controlled substance - first offense; possession of a controlled substance - marijuana, first offense; failure to affix drug tax stamp and three counts possession of drug paraphernalia.
According to Clarke County Sheriff’s reports, on Jan. 21, a victim contacted the sheriff’s office to report Woltz had posted a sexually explicit video of her online without her knowledge or consent. Deputies found the video on a pornographic site, uploaded on Aug. 16, 2023, by username “j*****5.″
A search warrant was executed for the website, but the video had been removed as of Jan. 30. A subpoena revealed the user information of the login email address to be Jesse Woltz from Iowa.
On May 2, a second victim reached out to the sheriff’s office. Seventeen photos of this victim were uploaded to the same site by the same user. On a separate site, a folder of images of this victim had more than 40,000 views.
On May 5, a third victim contacted Clarke County. The search warrant from the original site showed the victim’s name had been used 67 times, but nothing was still uploaded. A separate pornographic site revealed username “j*****5″ had an album with the victim’s name as the title and 478 images of the victim.
A search warrant for that website showed the email address to be the one registered to Woltz and confirmed the photos and videos were still posted as of May 14. A search revealed content creators on this website earn money, with top-tier performers earning as much as $1,500 while newcomers may earn as low as $300.
On May 26, the Osceola Police Department conducted a search warrant at Woltz’s residence. In the garage, officers discovered a vehicle with a shotgun in plain view in the back seat. As a convicted domestic abuse offender, Woltz is prohibited from owning firearms.
Officers obtained an additional search warrant for the vehicle. In addition to the shotgun, officers located a bag containing a Sig P238 handgun, two loaded magazines and five jars containing controlled substances. Four of the five jars were labeled “30G.” Two of the jars contained a green leafy substance consistent with marijuana. The other three contained mushrooms believed to be psilocybin or psychedelic mushrooms. These substances are being sent to the Iowa DCI lab for processing.
The discovery of three pipes used to smoke marijuana resulted in three simple misdemeanors for possession of drug paraphernalia.
Woltz was transported to the Clarke County Jail where he was released from after posting cash or surety bonds of $15,000 for the search warrant charges and $37,000 for the harassment charges.
Woltz waived his right to a preliminary hearing that had been set for June 3.
His pretrial conference on the paraphernalia charges is scheduled for 9:30 a.m., Sept. 2 at the Clarke County Courthouse. He entered a plea of not guilty on June 3.