Celebrity Architect At It Again
Celebrity architect Jay Lockett Sears, 78 years old, of Long Island, New York, has been credited with designing nearly 1,500 homes including those of big name clients such as Michael J. Fox, Susan Lucci, Kathleen Battle and Clint Eastwood. Unfortunately, buildings aren’t the only thing he designs.
Sears has been arrested yet again for possession of child pornography and he was taken into custody by federal agents in his home on Thursday. Upon his arrest, Sears was first escorted to a hospital in Suffolk County where he was arraigned over the phone by U.S. District Judge Denis Hurley out of Central Islip. The hospital would not release additional details regarding why Sears was admitted due to HIPAA law. Sears did not enter a plea at his arraignment because he wasn’t required to do so, and the judge ordered that Sears be held without bail for the alleged crime.
Back in 2013, Sears was convicted and sentenced for committing the same crime. A garbage collector had found several boxes containing hundreds of disturbing images in a town dump in which Sears had pasted the faces of children on the nude bodies of adults. In May 2014, Sears was sentenced to six months of house arrest with five years of supervised release after pleading guilty to felony child pornography possession charges and cutting a deal to avoid imprisonment. He could have been sentenced to up to ten years on the six counts he was originally facing. Creepily, back then, the celebrity architect also ran a charity called Mission of Kindness for needy children and adults, and would frequently dress like an angel at the group’s various events. In his first brush with the law, investigators found some pictures of children Sears had met through the charity meshed with the adult bodies. He was very well known in the community for his work and fashionable attire, including his signature white suits, and the case received a lot of attention.
This time, investigators were tipped off by Sears’ probation officer while he was still on supervised release. While making a routine stop to ensure Sears was not violating the terms of his release, the officer discovered several bags of similar strange images Sears constructed using the bodies of adult females and the faces of little girls — the exact same crime as last time. Each creation had an explicit caption beneath it. The girls’ faces mainly came from publications including the Waldo Tribune, a kid-friendly newspaper connected to a clown business. Tyler Daniels, a press officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District said there was no indication that Sears shared the photos on the Internet.
Judge Denis Hurley will take the case this time around. Sears is represented by Randi Chavis of the Federal Defenders out of Central Islip and Assistant U.S. Attorney Allen Bode will represent the prosecution. If Sears is convicted, there will be no avoiding the slammer for the celebrity architect. He will face a three year sentence in a federal prison.
Sources:
Jay Sears Arrested For Violating Probation Terms Of Child Pornography Sentence
Join the conversation!