Utah charter school director pleads guilty in federal, state courts to child sex crimes

LAYTON — The director of a charter school in northern Utah who has pleaded guilty to both state and federal child sex crimes will not serve any additional prison time for his state charges, but faces decades in prison for the federal charges.

Jared Dallan Buckley, 41, of West Point, was booked into the Davis County Jail in April 2025 for investigation of two counts of aggravated sexual exploitation of minor and sexual exploitation of a minor.

Buckley was the lead director of the Leadership Learning Academy, according to both police and the charter school's website, with campuses in Layton and Ogden serving students from kindergarten through sixth grade. He also appeared to be "involved with various local youth sports organizations," according to investigators.

Days after his arrest, Buckley was charged in U.S. District Court with possession of child sexual abuse material.

The FBI began investigating Buckley in October 2024 when agents found a person using the name "Emma" on an "application known to be used by people interested in child sexual abuse material," according to federal charging documents. Investigators say Emma was distributing a video of child sex abuse material.

"Emma also represented that Emma had original child sex abuse material content that Emma could produce and distribute to others for a price," the federal charges allege.

Once investigators said they identified Emma as Buckley, three federal search warrants were served.

"Law enforcement officers located well over 10,000 images and videos of child sex abuse material — and possibly as many as 50,000 images and videos — largely all depicting child pornography," federal prosecutors said in a court filing.

Buckley also told others online that "he could produce and distribute" similar materials for a price and had been distributing images across multiple online platforms, according to federal prosecutors.

In September 2025, while his federal case was ongoing, Buckley was charged in 2nd District Court with aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony.

The charge stemmed from a 17-year-old victim reporting to police that he had been sexually abused by Buckley, his principal, five years prior while at school in Davis County. The victim told police he was in the school bathroom alone when Buckley sexually abused him, according to the charges.

"Buckley then told the victim that he should not tell anyone, and if he did, he would get school detention. Victim was a special needs child," the charges state.

He pleaded guilty on April 29 in state court to attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony. As part of his plea deal, he promised to also plead guilty in the federal case, for which he faces up to 35 years in federal prison.

He was sentenced Wednesday to time served and given credit for the 419 days he has spent in custody since his arrest last year.

On June 2, federal prosecutors filed a superseding felony information document against Buckley charging him with production, possession and distribution of child sex abuse material. He pleaded guilty to all three charges on June 3 and has a sentencing hearing scheduled in October.

Buckley admitted in his federal plea that he had created an encrypted group chat for users from around the world to "engage in the sexual abuse of their own children and share that with users of the group." He said he created flyers for the group targeting parents with "little girls ages 0 to 9 only."

"I used my contacts within this group as well as various other online platforms to produce, trade, share and purchase child pornography," Buckley stated in his plea. "Additionally, on my phone, I possessed 97,000 images and 4,600 videos, nearly all of which material contained images of prepubescent children being sexually assaulted by adults."

According to his online biography, Buckley had been with the Leadership Learning Academy since 2014. He received a bachelor's degree from Weber State University as a special education teacher.

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