Maybe his wife downloaded them....
But probably not.
Posted on 06/17/2004 11:13:47 AM PDT by Lurking Libertarian
Tax protester faces kiddie-porn charges
A Montgomery County man who has publicly dared the Internal Revenue Service to arrest him for not paying federal income taxes was charged yesterday in federal court in Philadelphia with possession of child pornography.
IRS agents seized 10 computers from the Hollywood home of Larken Rose more than a year ago, but have yet to charge the tax protester with any tax crimes.
The child pornography was "inadvertently discovered" by an IRS agent who was examining one of the computer's hard drives, an FBI agent alleged.
FBI agent Beatrice A. DeFazio said the computer images contained explicit sexual situations involving underage girls.
The agent said there is "probable cause" to believe that Rose downloaded the kiddie porn from the Internet because the pictures were stored in the same computer file "where partially nude images of his wife" were also stored."
Neither Rose nor his wife could be reached last night.
Now I will go on record as being very much in favor of at least major tax relief if not abolition of the idea of *internal* revenue collection. However, I do note that rule breakers tend to break rules in more than one area. Just an observation from the school of hard knocks.
Maybe his wife downloaded them....
But probably not.
IIRC, this would not be the first time a tax protestor has been "linked" with a child-related crime. I remain suspicious of the federales.
A Gary Hart wannabe.
Moral of the story - if you're going to wave a red flag in front of an angry bull, don't stand behind it!
The child pornography was "inadvertently discovered" by an IRS agent who was examining one of the computer's hard drives, an FBI agent alleged.Inadvertently indeed. They used to plant guns on people after they shot them too.
It took them more than a year to find unencrypted images on a hard drive?
Putting on my tin foil hat here:
All the cops have to do is email you kiddie porn, then they can break into your house, confiscate your computer, and arrest you when they find the evidence. Heck, the could mass email it out and arrest EVERYONE.
Hmm. Computers in the hands of the government for a year and they just now found kiddie porn?
OK. Not that I would suggest that the government would plant evidence... oh, no. I am a proud patriot who loves to pay my taxes. *ahem*
The new version of the throw down pistol.
sometimes these images just keep coming up on the screen and you swat them away and they just take over the whole space with no way to click them away and then it looks like I was surfing for porn!
If you're investigating someone for tax evasion, the "my pictures" folder is probably not the first thing you check.
I thought that a search warrant had to be for specific cause.
Confiscating a suspect's computers under a tax evasion search warrant and then charging him with a non-tax evasion crime sounds like a fishing expedition to me.
Unless the rule of law does not apply to certain types of criminal allegations.
From the article:
The agent said there is "probable cause" to believe that Rose downloaded the kiddie porn from the Internet because the pictures were stored in the same computer file "where partially nude images of his wife" were also stored."
Hmm. Computers in the hands of the government for a year and they just now found kiddie porn?
The Feds probably are claiming that the images were "in plain sight" on the defendant's hard drive....
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