SJ IT Consultant Convicted of Child Porn

A Silicon Valley information technology consultant who rigged up his San Jose home with hidden cameras so he could watch young girls sleeping, undressing, bathing and going to the bathroom was convicted this week of child pornography and molestation charges.

The accidental discovery of John Zeno Moore’s cameras two years ago by a mother who had rented a room in his home, led investigators to finding a trove of child pornography in Moore's possesion, Santa Clara County prosecutor's announced Wednesday.

Following a 10-day trial where a jury came back with a guilty verdict on Tuesday, the 40-year-old Moore now faces more than 180 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 31.

“This person will never be able to hurt another little girl again,’’ Deputy District Attorney Erin West said. “On the surface this was an articulate, professional man who was able to gain the trust of these single moms. He turned out to be a serial child molester. We can all be too trusting.”

The case against Moore began in April of 2010 when a single mother and her two young daughters subleased rooms in his rented San Jose home.

After a few nights sleeping there, the power went out.

There to help with a flashlight, the mother’s estranged husband shined the beam at the bathroom ceiling to discover a minute Pinnacle security camera hidden in an empty light fixture.

To see if the camera was working, prosecutors said the husband used an electronic device to transmit the camera’s signals to a television in the bedroom. When they turned the TV on, it showed them watching themselves in the bedroom. This meant there was a second camera secretly installed in the cable box of the bedroom TV.

The family called police. Using warrants, investigators searched Moore’s computers and hard drive, finding more than 300 child pornography videos and stills. They also found a 45-second video of Moore stripping and posing the two-year-old daughter of one of his friends. He had volunteered to babysit her child. Investigators also found 199 surreptitious videos of the teenage daughter of Moore’s previous tenant.

When police went to arrest Moore, he had disappeared. San Jose Detective Russell Chubon had a hunch based on phone records. Attending a child sexual exploitation conference in October 2010, Chubon took a side trip and found Moore hiding in the home of a female friend in the Seattle suburbs. He arrested him there.