A former coach who posed as a teenage girl to obtain nude images has been jailed for 23 years.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Former assistant high school volleyball coach, caught with hundreds of images and videos of child pornography was sentenced Thursday in federal court to 23 years in prison.

Clay Thomas Wolfe, 28, of Junction City, Ohio, pleaded guilty in April to sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child pornography. He was arrested in June 2023 while working at New Lexington High School in Perry County, southeast of Columbus.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio, since 2018, Wolfe has used the social media app Snapchat to impersonate a 15-year-old girl named Ellie. Posing as Ellie, Wolfe received hundreds of sexually explicit messages. videos and images showing underage male victims, some as young as 10 years old.

Prosecutors say Wolf extorted child pornography from more than 300 victims. About 100 victims came from states including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky.

Authorities began investigating Wolfe in April 2022 when a Pennsylvania sixth-grader began sharing a nude photo of a classmate he received from “Ally,” the press release said. Authorities said Wolfe sent photographs of a young woman’s naked breasts and genitals to convince victims to send him nude and sexually explicit images and videos.

Once he received the images, he used them to extort his victims, threatening to send them to family and friends if they did not cooperate, prosecutors say.

In total, Wolfe received approximately 850 images and 570 videos of child pornography. Wolfe was arrested and charged federally in June 2023.