How did Law Enforcement ID You?
Criminal lawyers who deal with possession of child pornography cases have to be cognizant of how and why law enforcement came to identify the client as a suspect. What lead to law enforcement learning of the client’s name, address, or other location? Was the client singled out from other people?
One of the ultimate issues in any possession of child pornography case that involves the use of computers or the internet is online chatting and instant messaging. In many cases, possession of child pornography is not the only offense a person faces.
In some cases, law enforcement targeted the defendant after a series of online chats where the law enforcement officer or agent posed as an underage minor. In these cases, an alleged offender would have ventured into an online chat room where a conversation was had with a law enforcement officer posing as an underage minor.
Law enforcement agencies all over the county have officers/agents who do this. This includes local, state, and federal agencies.
During these online chats, an officer/agent will specifically state that he/she is underage. These statements aren’t made in a way that would necessarily arouse suspicion, but they are stated in a such that the adult on the other end of the conversation is made explicitly aware that they are not chatting with another adult.
To make the ruse even more believable, undercover officers/agents will send the suspect offender a picture of a minor and claim it is theirs. Obviously, the picture of the minor would not be of a pornographic nature. In fact, as a criminal defense lawyer, I have seen some cases where the undercover officer/agent used a picture of themselves that was taken when the officer was an adolescent or elementary age child. In these cases, the officer will use his/her own photograph because they are able to authenticate the age of the person depicted in the photograph during trial without presenting the testimony of additional witnesses.
During these online chats, undercover officers/agents will try to get the suspect offender to send his/her photograph. In many cases, the unwitting suspect will send photos of him/herself to the undercover officer/agent without question. Sometimes these photos are of a lewd nature, depicting the suspect offender without clothing, masturbating, or engaged in a sex act with another person.
These chats will invariably turn to discussions about sex as well. Suspect offenders routinely ask the undercover officer/agent if he/she has a boyfriend or girlfriend. They will ask if the undercover officer/agent is still a virgin or if they like to masturbate.
Discussions about kissing, touching, intercourse, and preferential sex practices are common place. These discussions are extremely important to any criminal defense lawyer working defending someone accused of possession of child pornography or enticement because the undercover officers/agents ALWAYS save the chat logs. This means that every word typed by both parties is recorded and saved for later use in court.
The images transferred between the parties are also saved for evidentiary purposes.
Law enforcement goes to great lengths to chat with suspect offenders and exchange images because they are trying to build the strongest case possible. Whenever a jury reads chat transcripts between an adult and a person that adult knew to be a minor, the jury will find the defendant’s character and actions to be extremely offensive.
Reading sex chats between the suspect offender and the undercover officer/agent will always serve to inflame the jury against the defendant. The more sexual, explicit and lewd these discussions get, the more offensive they are to a jury.
When the police go to arrest a suspect offender, it is not uncommon for them to apply for and obtain a search warrant to inspect the suspect’s home and computer. During the searches that follow, it is not uncommon for police to discover that the suspect offender was in possession of child pornography.
In yet other cases, the suspect is charged with possession of child pornography when he/she shares child pornography with the undercover officer/agent during their chats.