Graphic of federal indictment
News Director, Owner
Thomas Hamel sex offender photo
He carried an ink pen in his front pocket like thousands of teachers – except his pen was a high definition video camera.
He is a 68-year-old small-statured, bespectacled, diminutive man with a masters degree who never married.
He wept uncontrollably while trying to apologize in federal court and sat down apparently unable to finish the apology.
A seemingly nice elderly man who hid a dark heart with evil intentions, Thomas Kevin Hamel always made himself available to help when high school athletes were nude like weigh-ins and locker-rooms.
Photo by Greg Peterson
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Photo of the honorable U.S. District Court Judge R. Allan Edgar by David LaPrad, Hamilton County Herald
Hamel was sentenced in Marquette federal court Wednesday to 15 years in federal prison by U.S. District Court Judge R. Allan Edgar.
In fact, after 31 years on the bench, Hamel was the final federal court sentencing for Judge Edgar, who has retired after some four decades in legal work that included growing up in Marquette until age 13 and becoming a lawyer, and a state representative, and then a U.S. District Court judge in Tennessee – who also presided in Marquette federal court because he and his family love the U.P. of Michigan.
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A confirmed bachelor with over 600 child porn images on his computer, Hamel is the scion of a prominent St. Ignace family – whose physician father “delivered most of the children” in the St. Ignace” area.
“I apologize to the city of St. Ignace, I apologize to the community and I apologize to the students I took care of,” Hamel said tearfully before breaking down and returning to his chair at the defendant table.
He never raised suspicion as a volunteer athletic trainer on the boys wrestling and football teams at LaSalle High School in St. Ignace were nude including wandering into the male showers being used by young athletes while he recorded everything between Nov. 2007 and Dec. 2012.
The unsuspecting student athletes liked Hamel who wrapped injured ankles, helping in many other ways even described as an assistant coach at times.
A retired teacher of 27 years turned volunteer in male teen sports, Hamel plead guilty Feb. 1, 2016 to sexual exploitation and attempted exploitation of a minor.
Hamel had a favorite 14-year-old that he videotaped on many occasions, prosecutors said in court.
Hamel made numerous still images from the videotape of “one boy he was particularly fond of,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Lochner.
The indictment alleges Hamel made secret videos of three young male wrestlers in their early teens at a weigh-in and another teen athlete who was “dressing in a locker room,” and another who was “partially nude” in a trainer’s room.
Mackinac County Jail mugshot of Thomas Hamel
While teen male athletes were nude below the waist “at a wrestling team weigh-in,” Hamel videotaped the boys and created videos involving the “lascivious exhibition of (the boy’s) pubic area”
A once proud St. Ignace family that’s struggling to deal with life-changing humiliation, Hamel’s siblings drove from the eastern U.P. to be in Marquette federal court Wednesday to show their support for him.
Hamel’s father delivered over 2,500 babies in the St. Ignace area.
While Hamel secretly videotaped, student athletes would be nude in front of him in the locker-room and Hamel taped “nude wrestlers at weigh-ins,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Lochner.
Surreptitiously, Hamel’s volunteer job “gave him access… it game him access as an athletic trainer,” Lochner said.
Hamel’s actions are a “hideous abuse of trust,” Lockner said.
Federal prosecutors take Hamel at his word that none of his videos and photos were distributed but rather for his own use. Nonetheless, the images were turned over to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children because federal prosecutors “can’t be certain” the images did not make it on the internet or private child porn video collections.
Among the reasons the feds believe the LaSalle High School images were not distributed is Hamel’s computer was not connected to the internet and he cooperated in providing passwords to his secret stock of child porn including the boys of St. Ignace.
In fact, parents, students and school officials were genuinely shocked when the FBI came knocking on their doors with the horrifying news the kids were exploited by the team’s athletic trainer.
When a defense attorney tried to argue that Hamel had no supervisory role, Judge Edgar disagreed.
“Minors were in his care,” Judge Edgar said. “The wrestling and football teams were entrusted to his career.”
Trying to paint his client as not as bad as fellow dangerous predators, defense attorney Joseph P. Kwiatkowski of Cheboygan noted Hamel “never touched or molested anyone.”
Kwiatkowski said Hamel cooperated fully with the FBI and U.S. Postal Service Inspector Wylie Christopher.
He pleaded with the judge not to give Hamel the maximum possible sentence of 30 years in prison calling it a “death sentence” due to Hamel’s elderly age noting even a 15-year sentence will put his client at the end of projected life expectancy as set by the U.S. Social Security Administration.
Technically a 180 month sentence equals 15 years, four days and four hours or 7,890,000 minutes.
Noting Hamel never forced children to pose for images, Kwiatkowski said his client knows the harm he has caused an offers “no excuses.”
Letters were written to the judge on Hamel’s behalf, Kwiatkowski noted, pointing out one is from Father Jim Williams. However, while these types of letters are often available in federal documents a check by Upper Peninsula Breaking News shows the Rev. Williams letter has apparently been restricted in this case.
Hamel started sex offender counseling after his the state and FBI raid.
Kwiatkowski noted the irony that Hamel would be in prison for 15 years in prison while on the same day serial child molester and disgraced former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Dennis Hastert began serving a 15-month sentence for financial crimes connected to molestation scandal involving young boys.
Hastert molested boys and made payoffs as hush money to cover up the crimes but could not be charged due to the Statute of Limitations. The 74-year-old Hastert used a wheelchair to wheel himself into a federal medical prison – an easy way to serve his sentence.
On April 21, a federal grand jury sitting in Marquette returned a six-count, seven-page felony indictment outlining his child porn activities.
The grand jury indicted Hamel on five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, and one count of possession of child pornography,
Hamel admitted buying child porn from overseas.
The FBI raided his home in Dec. 2012 after Hamel’s name appeared on the mailing list of an overseas child porn trafficking ring that distributed videos and more.
That’s when his secret photos and videos of student athletes were found by federal agents.
Related links and info:
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
http://www.missingkids.com/home
https://www.instagram.com/1800TheLost/
http://www.missingkids.com/RSS
https://twitter.com/MissingKids
https://www.facebook.com/missingkids
https://www.youtube.com/user/missingkids
Dennis Hastert, perverted former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/speaker-house-dennis-hastert-report-prison/story?id=40026897
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/22/politics/dennis-hastert-goes-to-prison/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert
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Thomas Kevin Hamel
Filed: 04/21/2015
Mackinac County
2:2015-cr-00011
Sentencing Thomas Hamel 6-22-16
http://www.homefacts.com/offender-detail/MI234937820160502/Thomas-Kevin-Hamel.html
Pleaded guilty
Count 1
Sexual exploitation of a minor and attempted sexual exploitation of a minor
Dismissed by Judge R. Allan Edgar under plea agreement:
Counts 2-5
Sexual exploitation of a minor and attempted sexual exploitation of a minor
Count 6
Possession of child pornography
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Federal Public Defender for Thomas Kevin Hamel
Elizabeth A. LaCosse
Federal Public Defender (Marquette)
925 W Washington, Ste. 104
Marquette, MI 49855
(906) 226-3050
(906) 273-0070
Thomas Hamel defense attorney
Joseph P. Kwiatkowski
Patrick Kwiatkowski & Hesselink PLLC
11512 N Straits Hwy., Ste. 200
Cheboygan, MI 49721
Phone: (231) 627-7151
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Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Lochner (Marquette)
Citizens Bank Building, 2nd Fl.
1930 US 41 W
Marquette, MI 49855
(906) 226-2500
Email: paul.lochner@usdoj.gov
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel S. Fauson of Grand Rapids, MI
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel S. Fauson
U.S. Attorney (Grand Rapids)
The Law Bldg.
330 Ionia Ave., NW
P.O. Box 208
Grand Rapids, MI 49501-0208
(616) 456-2404
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmi/pr/2016_0429_BKelsey
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/02/mail_carrier_quits_dumps_mail.html
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/02/prosecutors_seeking_stiffer_pr.html
http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/12a0178p-06.pdf
Asst. U.S. Attorney Maarten Vermaat
U.S. Attorney (Marquette)
Citizens Bank Building, 2nd Fl.
1930 US 41 W
Marquette, MI 49855
(906) 226-2500
http://www.justice.gov/usao/miw/news/2012/2012_0525_VProtasoff.html
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/07/12/attorney-actor-john-stamos-fling-year-old-student/
Asst. U.S. Attorney Hannah Bobee
U.S. District Court Western District of Michigan
She is native American and and an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians
http://www.rosettelaw.com/attorney-bio-bobee.html
http://www.justice.gov/dea/divisions/det/2013/det061913.shtml
LaSalle High School St. Ignace Area Schools
http://stignace.eup.k12.mi.us/Domain/135
http://stignace.eup.k12.mi.us/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lasalle-High-School/733018816774702
http://www.maxpreps.com/high-schools/lasalle-saints-(st-ignace,mi)/football/home.htm
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Federal Judge R. Allan Edgar
U.S. District Court Judge R. Allan Edgar
U.S. District Court Western District of Michigan
P.O. Box 698
Marquette MI 49855
Office Phone: (906) 226-2084
Case Manager: (906) 226-2084
http://www.miwd.uscourts.gov/content/judge-r-allan-edgar
A Marquette native, Edgar spent most of his career in Tennessee, first an attorney and then elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives. President Ronald Reagan appointed Edgar as a U.S. District judge in 1985.
His parents me at the Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Big Bay, MI.
Until age 13, Edgar lived as a child on West Magnetic Street in Marquette, MI
The family moved in 1953 when his his father got job in Tennessee.
The future Judge Edgar still spent summers in the U.P. with his grandparents and worked a summer job out at the exclusive Huron Mountain Club in Big Bay, MI.
Photo of Judge R. Allan Edgar by David Laprad, Hamilton County Herald
http://www.hamiltoncountyherald.com/Story.aspx?id=1210&date=4%2F16%2F2010
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Allan_Edgar
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Statute of Limitations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_limitations
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/statute-of-limitations-state-laws-chart-29941.html
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Thomas Hamel mug shot courtesy Mackinac County Sheriff’s Department
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Previous Coverage
Ex-teacher, trainer secretly recorded nude athletes with pen camera by John Agar | jagar@mlive.com Follow on Twitter on Feb. 2, 2016. Agar covers crime for MLive/Grand Rapids Press
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/02/ex-teacher_trainer_secretly_re.html
Hamel Arraigned on Six Federal Charges
http://www.stignacenews.com/news/2015-04-30/News/Hamel_Arraigned_on_Six_Federal_Charges.html
Federal Prosecution Team Takes Over Hamel Case by Erich T. Doer
http://www.stignacenews.com/news/2014-02-13/News/Federal_Prosecution_Team_Takes_Over_Hamel_Case.html
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/04/volunteer_athletic_trainer_vid.html
Upper Peninsula Breaking News by Greg Peterson 