POCATELLO — Bannock County’s former chief deputy coroner has now been charged with 11 felony counts of possessing child sexual abuse material as the investigation deepens into his alleged sexual abuse of two now-adult women for years.
The new charges against Jonathan “J.R.” Farnsworth were filed Monday after authorities executed forensic extractions of two cell phones seized from his desk at the Bannock County Coroner’s Office when he was arrested May 28, according to police and court records the Idaho State Journal obtained Tuesday.
Farnsworth’s employment with the coroner’s office ended the day after his arrest, according to Bannock County Coroner Torey Danner, who declined to provide further comment because of the ongoing criminal case against Farnsworth.
The forensic extraction of the two cell phones, conducted June 3, uncovered “dozens of images and videos of suspected child sexual abuse material,” or CSAM, of which 11 videos contained “depictions of sexually explicit acts involving minors, with estimated ages of the victims ranging from toddlers to mid-teens,” according to the police report included in the affidavit of probable cause supporting the new charges against Farnsworth.
The police report lists each of the 11 videos with labels suggesting the files were downloaded from the Telegram app.
The new charges were filed while Farnsworth remains incarcerated at the Power County Jail in American Falls following his May 28 arrest at the Bannock County Coroner’s Office. At the time of his arrest, Farnsworth — who also previously served as chief of the North Bannock Fire District — was charged with four counts of lewd conduct with a minor under 16, one count of rape and one count of sexual exploitation of a child, all felonies, following a Pocatello police investigation that began May 18 when one of two victims initially disclosed Farnsworth had sexually abused her for more than a decade.
According to court records from the initial case, the first victim told police the abuse began when she was approximately 5 years old in 1997 and continued until she was 15, occurring at multiple residences in Pocatello and Inkom. A second victim, a childhood friend of the first, told police Farnsworth sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions when she was approximately 15 or 16 years old. During a wire-recorded conversation supervised by police on May 26, Farnsworth admitted to having sexual contact with the first victim multiple times and to dating and having sex with the second victim when she was 13 years old, court records show.
Farnsworth was scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on the initial charges Tuesday, but that hearing was postponed until July 14.
While at the Bannock County Courthouse, Farnsworth appeared before 6th District Magistrate Judge David A. Hooste for an arraignment hearing on the new charges, where the judge set his bond at $100,000 on that case. That bond is in addition to the $500,000 bond set on the initial charges, court records show.
Farnsworth did not enter pleas to the new charges during Tuesday’s hearing and has not entered pleas on the initial charges either, court records show.
Farnsworth’s next scheduled court appearance is a preliminary hearing for the new child sexual abuse charges June 16 before 6th District Magistrate Judge Carol “Tippi” Jarman.
Bannock County Prosecutor Ian Johnson told the Idaho State Journal on Tuesday that he is unsure if he will file a motion to join both of Farnsworth’s cases into one and declined to comment further, citing the ongoing nature of the case.
If convicted, each of the 11 felony possession of sexually exploitative material charges is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
Each of the four lewd conduct charges and the single count of rape Farnsworth faces carries a maximum penalty of up to life in prison and a fine of up to $50,000. The sexual exploitation of a child charge is punishable by up to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000.
Farnsworth has retained Idaho Falls attorney Allen Browning to represent him on the initial rape and lewd conduct case.