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A Minnesota college football coach said he wants to return to work now that a judge has dismissed prosecutors’ claims that video he took of his children playing after a bath amounted to pornography.

A judge sided with Todd Hoffner, head coach at Minnesota State-Mankato, by throwing out the child porn charges against him on Friday. The judge said the cellphone video was nothing more than children playfully dancing naked after a bath.

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”I’m just so thankful to be waking up from this nightmare,” Hoffner said after the ruling, which came more than three months after the coach was escorted off a practice field and later arrested.

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Hoffner was charged after a school employee found the video on his university-issued cellphone and notified authorities. Hoffner had taken his problematic phone to work to be checked out.

Hoffner testified earlier that his three young children asked him to videotape a skit they had concocted after taking a bubble bath. His wife has defended him, as have supporters who even held candlelight vigils on his behalf.

A search of his home computer found no evidence of child porn, and social workers found no evidence that the couple’s children had been abused. Hoffner said he had never even watched the video.

In her 24-page ruling Friday, Blue Earth County District Judge Krista Jass said she didn’t find any evidence that the videos amounted to pornography.

”The videos under consideration here contain nude images of Defendant’s minor children dancing and acting playful after a bath. That is all they contain,” Jass wrote.

Fleming singled out the assistant county prosecutor who brought the charges, Mike Hanson, saying he ”essentially argued that this was child pornography because he knows it when he sees it.”

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Minnesota State's head coach

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Elleshoe

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pornography because he knows it when he sees it.

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”The videos under consideration here contain nude images of Defendant’s minor children dancing and acting playful after a bath. That is all they contain,” Jass wrote.

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t this was child pornography because he knows it when he sees it

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An adult who calls this pornography sounds more like somebody who is projecting their own guilt that they feel and their own thoughts about naked children... because no rational person would ever think a parent taking video of their young child in in the bathtub is pornography. Perverts are the only ones who make that connection.

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I think it amounts to an ADA who was trying to make a name for themselves by taking down a well-known member of the community for what he deemed a heinous act.

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Nah, I think it amounts to an ADA who was trying to make a name for themselves by taking down a well-known member of the community for what he deemed a heinous act.

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The fact that this happened is just more proof that this country has lost all common sense.

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His arrest was a fishing expedition and he came back with nothing. It is a shame that the ADA, arresting officers, or the University employee will not be punished; but this Coach's name is forever tarnished.

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