The former vice chairman of the Smyth County School Board in Virginia has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after admitting to coercing minors into sending him explicit images. This comes following his guilty plea.

Todd Stewart Williams, 54, of Chilhowie, was sentenced on Thursday, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The Department of Justice disclosed that in addition to his 30-year sentence, Williams will face an additional decade of supervised release and must pay over $20,000 in fines.

On April 3, Williams admitted guilt to four counts involving his efforts to persuade, induce, and coerce minors into engaging in sexually explicit activities for the purpose of creating visual depictions of those acts, facilitated across state lines.

Williams’ charges stem from an investigation that found he had spent more than $10,000 buying nude images from multiple underage male victims.

In September 2022, a 15-year-old boy in Oklahoma told the FBI that Williams, using the Snapchat app, had offered to pay him for explicit images. Investigators later learned that Williams sent the boy more than $2,100 in less than six months, and multiple sexual messages had been exchanged.

The DOJ reports that at least 11 victims of Williams were identified, and more have yet to be identified.

According to the DOJ, from 2022 to 2024, Williams paid a teenager to photograph and record himself sexually abusing his younger stepbrother, a boy of 8-10 years old during the offenses. The teen was instructed by Williams to force his stepbrother to watch pornography and then engage in sexual acts.

Prosecutors stated in the release that Williams used multiple platforms to communicate with victims, such as Snapchat, Signal and Telegram. He also used a variety of payment methods, including one instance in which he mailed a teenager a debit card hidden in a box of new shoes.

Williams served as the vice chairman of the Smyth County School Board and worked with a school basketball team in the county. The DOJ stated he used that position to “surreptitiously record boys in various states of undress” in locker rooms. The release noted that no genitalia were visible in the recordings.

“On one occasion, Williams set up a hidden camera to record a young boy using the bathroom on an overnight basketball trip,” the release states.

After Williams’ arrest on Aug. 23, 2024, the school board called for his resignation. Williams resigned almost two weeks after his arrest on Sept. 5, 2024.