Former TX Tech Student, 23, Pleads Guilty to Child Porn Charge

Lubbock, TX, Avalanche-Journal ^ | 08-27-03 | Not given

[Theodore R.]

Former Tech student pleads to porn charge

A former Texas Tech student pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to downloading child pornography from the Internet.

David Russell Brigham, 23, of Abilene faces a maximum sentence of 15 years when U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings sentences him in several weeks.

A Lubbock federal grand jury indicted Brigham in March on 13 charges of transporting and receiving child pornography.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Brigham admitted that in November 2000 he downloaded an image of a young girl engaging in sexual intercourse with an adult man.

The additional charges will be dismissed as part of a plea agreement, but Brigham must forfeit his computer equipment.

Brigham is free on bond.

[goldstategop]

Let me guess: someone planted the child porn on his computer.

[Dante3]

I hope he gets the max. Only ACLU and pedophiles (and these two appear to overlap) would support child porn.

[Gunslingr3]

Let me guess: someone planted the child porn on his computer.

If he's using Windows, someone could.

[Theodore R.]

So, is it LEGAL to put child porn on the Internet but illegal to download it? Liberals say that we cannot keep it off the Internet because of "free speech" concerns.

[RockChucker]

It is both illegal to put it on the internet and to download it. However, if you originate from places like the Netherlands, you are protected by law to be able to post what ever you want (as long as it's not racist).

The accused probably admitted to downloading the stuff, or was part of a sting op.

[Theodore R.]

So does all the child porn on the net come from other countries, such as the Netherlands?

[DBrow]

Not as strange as you think. If you are looking at pictures of 1957 Chevrolets in a binaries newsgroup, and a child porn seller has spammed the group, when you click on his posting, you will then download child porn into your computer.

If you use an automatic binary downloader, like if you want to link up the big music files on alt.binaries.music.1970s, the downloader will scoop up any pictures anyone has spammed to that group.

So you delete the pictures, and years later, the police pick traces of the downloads when they are looking at your HD for, say, a child support or alimony case.

Or, the cops deliberately put images on newsgroups and watch who downloads them- you, the user, cannot tell what is in a posting UNTIL you download it (and an automatic downloader scoops everything), and now the cops have your IP address in their list of people to investigate, and when they come to your house with a warrant for your hard drive you can say, "But I deleted it right away!" and hope the jury sees the inherent goodness in your soul (stating that you deleted it is admission that you downloaded it).

Another way to download illegal pictures is by visiting a site that links to porn site popup ads- up pops the ad with disgusting pictures in it, now in your RAM and stored in your cache files, too.

I don't know if that is what happened to this guy- the article just says that he admitted to downloading one picture, so his whole life story is not available. I suspect they had other evidence as well, and I am not in any way defending this individual. But the scenarios I sketched out do happen. I think the "authorities" do recognize the liklihood that the vast number of people get this stuff by mistake.

The penalty for downloading one illegal picture is 15 years?

[RockChucker]

Not sure. It is likely that there is a lot of activity everywhere, but I would think that given the nature of the Net, commercial off-shore sites would stay up while US based sites (based on their IP address, which has to be assigned and paid for) would be immediately shut down.

[Dick Vomer]

I suspect they had other evidence as well, and I am not in any way defending this individual. But the scenarios I sketched out do happen. I think the "authorities" do recognize the liklihood that the vast number of people get this stuff by mistake.

Yep it happened locally. Parent with 17 kid and I think either Kazaa or Grog-somehting had something on the harddrive and was taken in for a repair. Got turned in and now they charge the parent with the "crime" due to the fact that the account was in his name. I guess they can do a time of download or something like that to establish who had access to the computer at the time the images were downloaded and see if it makes sense.

I think it's all very strange with the spam and pop ups and spybots etc.... I think the Internet is a very dangerous place to go downloading "anything" or leaving your name and address around. There is a guy that backs up his computer everyweek and reformats his harddrive at his small business. Isn't that a little drastic? He's never had a virus or any problems.... so who knows.