Tax protester faces kiddie-porn charges

Philadelphia Daily News ^ | Thu, Jun. 17, 2004 | Jim Smith

[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.

[AppyPappy]

Not true. They have to prove you were aware of the child porn. Usually, it's pretty easy.

[steplock]

sounds more like a set-up by the irs!

They've been losing court cases when they tried to use LEGAL methods - since they are an illegal organization to begin with - so now they have learned the jack-boot tactics of the DEA and BATF

[Lurking Libertarian]

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.

Hence the claim by the Government that pictures were "inadvertently discovered." If the cops get a search warrant based on probable cause to suspect one crime, and they inadvertently find evidence of another crime, the Supreme Court has held the evidence admissible. A common situation is cops entering an apartment with a warrant to search for stolen goods and finding drugs.

[dasboot]

Umm...some agents and/or prosecutors are inclined to charge for violations on the thinnest of pretexts, e.g.: a nudie picture of a grandchild, just to 'break' the irritator, financially or mentally.

This is currently happening to a friend. They don't play fair. Cut the guy the benefit of the doubt. They destroy people, sometimes.

[Skooz]

The new version of the throw down pistol.

Yep. Anyone could put anything on your hard drive.

If someone is alone with your computer, it would take less than 5 minutes to create and password protect a directory and unload dozens of kiddie porn images on it.

And your pleas os "I didn't know that was on there;" "No, I don't know the password to that folder;" would fall on deaf ears.

[GrandEagle]

some agents and/or prosecutors are inclined to charge for violations on the thinnest of pretexts

Agreed. I WHOLEHEARTILY concur that innocence until proven guilty is paramount.
One of these children is a teenager who they found, the other he confessed to and told them the childs name. Both were patients of his at the time.

[DB]

There are several Trojans that hijack your computer and turn it into a porn server...

I recently ran into a friends computer that was infected with something that constantly took the browser and added "favorites" of porn sites regardless of what you did. Ad-aware and other programs couldn't fix it. I finely had to give up and wipe the drive and reload the system.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

In other words, if the Feds want to get something on you all they have to do is get a search warrant for anything, and evidence of any other crimes they stumble across is admissable.

Why even bother with pretending the fourth amendment exists?

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

If you're investigating someone for tax evasion, the "my pictures" folder is probably not the first thing you check.

It might not be the first thing I'd check but products such as Invisible Secrets have been out long enough to enable non technical people to store information in hard to find places. You can be sure the CIA/FBI knows about this kind of stuff.

[OSHA]

There are several Trojans that hijack your computer and turn it into a porn server...

More that likely this was one of the many varieties of a nasty little bit of scumware known as CWS (cool web search).

There is a free program called CWS Shredder that does a fine job of getting rid of it.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

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."

I don't understand why the fact that this guy has nude pix of his wife on his computer gives the government probable cause to believe the guy also downloaded kiddie porn from the Internet.

[Centurion2000]

The child pornography was "inadvertently discovered" by an IRS agent who was examining one of the computer's hard drives, an FBI agent alleged.

Call me a conspiracy nut but this is planted data.

[Skooz]

Well, first you have to understand that "probable cause" is just an obstacle to be circumvented in any way, shape or form possible. The flimsiest of excuses is sufficient.

[Political Junkie Too]

Is this going to be the wave of the future for police abuse? Didn't it used to be the police "finding" a bag of dope when they wanted to arrest someone? Now they will "find" child porn whenever it is convenient for them?

I'm not saying that that's the case here, but it does seem to be the easiest way to find justification to arrest someone.

-PJ

[TankerKC]

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.

They've had this guy's computers for over a year and this is what they came up with? Who's really breaking the rules here?

[Sarah]

no, I know, it's just that I wouldn't want to think that a computer like mine is probable cause for having searched for this stuff. It just seems that so often computers have this stuff on and then it's spread all over the news that the person is a pervert. (or maybe they all are?)

[BossLady]

Agreed! It seems VERY convenient. And it makes the real kiddie porn pervs get a pass as long as LE spends time on this kind of thing....

[Billthedrill]

Dunno about the kiddie porn, but I'm not sure it's an altogether good thing to have your computer confiscated and then all of a sudden you're reading about pictures of your wife in the newspapers...

[TankerKC]

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."

Thanks for quoting that. Maybe you can tell me what it means.

[Sarah]

This trojan thing: EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!!
My husband told me that it was our teen-ager who was downloading movies etc. from Kazaa and then all these virus' got in and plastered my 'favorites' with all this extreme smut...
It happened overnight! I guess that the police couldn't use that to prove kiddy porn addiction, it must already be well documented.