The Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled against an accused kiddie porn collector who argued that Circuit City workers invaded his privacy when they reported illegal images found
on his computer.
The Superior Court panel concluded that Sodomsky had "no reasonable expectation the purported child porn files on his personal computer would remain private when he took it in for an upgrade," according to the Legal Intelligencer. The court's decision reverses a previous trial court's ruling that granted an injunction in favor of the defendant.
“Contrary to the trial court's conclusion, if [Sodomsky] exposed the video contents of his computer to Circuit City employees, he abandoned his privacy interest in those computer contents because those employees were members of the public,” Judge Mary Jane Bowes wrote in her decision. “If [Sodomsky] knowingly published his computer video files to members of the public, he had no reasonable expectation, under the applicable law, that the video files would not be disseminated to other individuals, including police.”
Sodomsky visited the Circuit City in October of 2004 to have an optical drive and DVD burner installed on his computer.
A Circuit City employee testified that the store tests the success of each installation by playing a video file. The salesman said the tech staff found the kiddie porn during a search of the system's files.
Sodomsky was met by a detective when he came to pick up his computer.
“The commonwealth maintains that the trial court erred in concluding that [Sodomsky] retained a privacy interest in the computer because he volitionally relinquished any expectation of privacy in that item by delivering it to Circuit City employees knowing that those employees were going to install and test a DVD drive,” Bowes wrote.
