Quoted from practicalsteve:I get why a lot of people on here are hoping for the best and using a lot of wishful thinking but you need to stop using the traci lords argument. That was thirty years ago, technology and the ability to track it has gotten much more sophisticated. Men weren't arrested for having the magazines and videos she made before she was eighteen, that's not an equivocal argument. This sounds like a sophisticated operation involving more than just him. While he is innocent until proven guilty I wouldn't hold my breath.
Ok, for all of you black and while folks, I will give you one to ponder where technology was at the base of what happened, and the "victim" was a willing participant.
A few years ago, an Asst. State Attorney and deputy Director of the state Bureau of Investigation was convicted of exploitation of a child. This is a guy I had worked withy several times, and one that helped to lock away many bad guys including child pornographers, rapists, pedophiles, etc. He was well known in the cop world for being very aggressive against the bad guys, and was very well respected in the law enforcement community for many years. Then one day he decides to send out an email that cost him his career, marriage, kids, and just about everything else important to him. I don't know the reason he sent it, there is some speculation that he was having an affair, or wanted to have an affair with a bureau secretary, but his claim is that it was all a twisted joke to a friend. I will add to this that those of us in the law enforcement community are known for our twisted or "gallows" humor, it is how a lot of folks deal with the things they see every day. However, I will add that ANY humor incorporating child pornography is well over the line of decency, so I am NOT defending his actions here. At any rate, he went to a VERY public site and copied a picture of a naked girl....he attached some wording to that picture, and sent it to that secretary. I don't know what the wording was, but I was told the picture of the girl was considered to be "art" on the website it was taken from. The problem? The girl was under the age of 18....I believe she turned out to be 16 at the time the picture was taken, with what I was told was her full consent. You can guess the rest of the story, the secretary objected to the picture and notified her administrator, and all hell broke loose. I wasn't involved in investigating the case, but was told the picture sent was the only one found on any of his computers or in his house that would be considered to be illegal. Long story short, he is charged and eventually pleads guilty to sexual exploitation of a child. And before anyone says there is more to this story, there probably is....which is most likely a political one. He had made some powerful enemies along the way, and he paid the price. That email was undoubtedly one of the dumbest things I have ever seen anyone in the law enforcement community do. It destroyed his life at the push of a button......yes, he knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew he should not have done it, and he has no one to blame but himself. He also tried to delete the evidence when he found out he had been turned in, which netted more charges that we dismissed as part of his deal to plead guilty. But with all of that said......does that warrant being convicted of sexual exploitation of a child, and having to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life? I really don't know. Do we lump him in as the same as any other sexual predator if that is all he is guilty of? Admittedly, there could be some details of the story I don't know, but this was all that came out in court. The prosecutor argued that the "artistic" image became pornographic when he added the wording and sent it to a female co-worker with the intent to arouse....etc. Again, I am not defending him...just saying I don't know how I would vote on this one. Not everything is black and white, and we should not jump to conclusions based on a charge and a mugshot. I will be the first to say it doesn't look good, and if he is truly guilty he deserves everything he gets. But if he is somehow found not-guilty, will we REALLY accept him back with open arms? Or is he already tried and convicted in our eyes? I spent a lifetime enforcing the laws, which was hard when you knew a guy was guilty and he used the system to walk free. But just the same I learned to respect and love the system that we have, and it just made me be a better cop in the long run.