Former Utah school director pleads guilty in child sex abuse case

Jared Dallan Buckley’s guilty pleas in both state and federal court pushed one of northern Utah’s most troubling school-abuse cases into its next phase, but they did not end the sentencing fight. The former lead director of Leadership Learning Academy, 41, admitted to sexually abusing a student and to creating and distributing child sexual abuse material, leaving the federal case to determine the real punishment.

That split matters because the two cases cover different pieces of the same conduct. In state court, Buckley resolved the charges with time served and no additional prison time on those counts. In federal court, though, he still faces a possible sentence of up to 35 years, making the practical exposure in the case a federal question now. Prosecutors say the federal side centers on his possession of well over 10,000 images and videos of child sexual abuse material, with investigators later describing the stash as possibly as many as 50,000 files.

The case began to unravel in October 2024, when FBI agents identified a user named Emma on an application used by people seeking child sexual abuse material. Prosecutors said the account was distributing videos and claiming it could produce new material for a price. Once investigators tied that account to Buckley, search warrants led them to the material that turned an undercover online inquiry into a criminal case with major sentencing stakes.

Buckley was later booked into the Davis County Jail in April 2025 after a state investigation into aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor and sexual exploitation of a minor. Federal prosecutors said he was charged on April 25, 2025, and court filings identified him as the lead director of Leadership Learning Academy’s Layton and Ogden campuses, a K-6 charter school at 100 W. 2675 North in Layton and 1111 2nd St. in Ogden. KSL NewsRadio reported he had held the job for seven years until April 2025.

That school role is what deepens the institutional failure angle. Buckley was not an outsider slipping in at random. He was the public face of a charter school serving children in kindergarten through sixth grade, and investigators also said he appeared to be involved with local youth sports organizations, widening the circle of access beyond the classroom. School administrators learned of his arrest the same day it happened, and parents were left stunned. One parent told ABC4, “I was shocked.”

The federal prosecution is being handled under Project Safe Childhood, the Justice Department initiative launched in May 2006 to combat online child exploitation and abuse. With the state case wrapped and the federal case still carrying the threat of decades behind bars, Buckley’s sentencing now turns on how much weight the court gives to the online cache, the child abuse allegations, and the trust he was able to build around children.