Posted on 10/26/2005 7:47:50 AM PDT by ncountylee
People shouldn't prejudge a Salinas elementary school teacher charged with downloading child pornography on a school computer, some of the teacher's friends and his lawyer said Tuesday.
Larry Mead, a sixth-grade teacher at University Park School and former vice president of the Salinas Teachers Union, has been charged with one felony count of possession of child pornography with the intent to distribute and 16 misdemeanor charges of possession of child pornography.
"He's adamant that (the pornographic images) are not his," said Mead's defense attorney, Joseph Cisneros.
Past teachers union president and former Mead colleague Tom Goevelinger said Mead's desk and computer were in an open pod of five classrooms and accessible to anyone.
"It could have been a janitor; it could have been anybody coming in there. That's the scary thing about it," Goevelinger said. "I think he's totally innocent and this is the type of thing that destroys your career."
Mead's arraignment is scheduled for Thursday at 1:30 p.m. He could face up to four years in state prison if convicted of child-pornography charges, a Monterey County prosecutor said Tuesday.
"We're talking about the absolute exploitation of children in a manner which is bound to do irreparable harm to the children which are featured in these things," said Deputy District Attorney Gary Thelander, who is prosecuting the case. "It's not as if we have a victimless crime."
(Excerpt) Read more at dogpile.com ...
I'll reserve judgement here until I know more but there's certainly reasonable doubt on this one.
""It could have been a janitor; it could have been anybody coming in there. That's the scary thing about it,""
Need I read any more?
My guess is that we will find out that he emailed the pictures from that computer to his computer, or something like that, and that is how they know it is him. We'll see. I can't seem to access the full article.
I wonder if this is why the teachers at my children's elementary school (very up-scale, networked computers everywhere, building-wide wireless network installed this past summer) discourage parents from communicating with them via e-mail.
Most files should have a time and date stamp on them.
"Need I read any more?"
Probably. Not all teachers are child porn collectors. Not all teachers are even liberals.
Back in 1962, when I was a junior in High School, one of my teachers, who taught Spanish and French, got it tons of trouble.
It seems that someone sent a letter to the school board, anonymously, saying that this teacher was a member of the Communist Party.
He almost got fired over this. He was, in no way, a communist. He was about the most apolitical person I ever knew. Good teacher. Nice guy overall.
It turned out that the parent of some kid who had gotten a bad grade in a Spanish class sent the letter to the school board.
Stuff happens. That's why we withhold judgment until all the facts are in.
"Most files should have a time and date stamp on them."
That's true, of course, although such things are easily altered. A time and date stamp is changable, so it's useless as evidence, I'm afraid.
Add to that the fact that most police computer "experts" are far from expert, and it's a complicated situation. If the teacher's computer was accessible by others, then they'll have to prove that he put the images on the computer. That's not always so easy to do.
Janitor? Why not? Could be. That's reasonable doubt.
Yup. My supervisor's computer was used to access porn sites at three in the morning. The guy that did it is no longer employed.
File date and time stamps can be altered but there are many, many places that activity gets registered within the computer. The defense needs a competent forensic analysis of the hard drive as well as the school's server logs in order to prove he wasn't the operator. I am surprised the schools' network allowed traffic to a porn site. Perhaps the teacher's union will be less adamant about unfettered access if it means they'll get tagged for any porn surfing with a computer nominally under their "control."
"File date and time stamps can be altered but there are many, many places that activity gets registered within the computer. The defense needs a competent forensic analysis of the hard drive as well as the school's server logs in order to prove he wasn't the operator. I am surprised the schools' network allowed traffic to a porn site."
The defense doesn't have to prove he "wasn't the operator." The prosecutor has to prove he WAS and in the process elimiante any reasonable alternitive as to how the material could have gotten there.
One of the problems here is that anyone could have come into the office and used something like an anonymous email account at Yahoo or any of a thousand other places. Kiddie porn is distributed primarily via email, so it might be tough to find a record of it.
An intruder might well have stored attached photos in a directory the teacher's not likely to examine....Windows\System, for example, then simply wiped stored files and history from the browser. That doesn't mean the information isn't accessible, but it's a lot harder.
The teacher, probably not an expert, would run his browser later. Maybe he'd notice that the history was gone due to the missing colors on links he had visited, but probably wouldn't think anything of it.
Meanwhile, images are on his PC, for the pleasure of this after-hours visitor.
Could happen, for sure. Did it happen? I have no idea.
You place a lot of faith in the jury of his "peers." I wouldn't bet a lifetime of sexual offender status on their ability to see that distinction and not be swayed by a strong circumstantial case.
When I was in grad school we had a small computer lab for grad students only. It was in a locked room and only grad students were issued keys.
One night I am working on a paer at home and decide to come to campus to print it out. It is about 3:00am (remember those all-nighters?) when I open to the computer lab door only to find all 5 of the buildings janitors sitting, in the dark, with hardcore pornographic images and movies playing on each computer.
Those machines were password protected, but lazy people never logged off.
So until I hear more, I will give this teacher the benefit of the doubt.
"One night I am working on a paer at home and decide to come to campus to print it out. It is about 3:00am (remember those all-nighters?) when I open to the computer lab door only to find all 5 of the buildings janitors sitting, in the dark, with hardcore pornographic images and movies playing on each computer.
"
Yup. It certainly can happen. Janitors have keys to everything.
My email address was getting some really questionable emails that dealt with not only incest but underage stuff. My response was to forward it to the FBI and demand that they do something about it.
Could also have been a student or another teacher wanting to cause trouble.
Men should not be elementary school teachers. Too many of them are pedophiles.
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