A man accused of possessing child porn and trafficking in obscenity offered his trial court proof this week that the photos police used as the reason to raid his business depicted adult women and not minors.
Michael A. Jones faces five years in prison if convicted, according to the Daily Herald, in a case that involved an October 2000 police raid seizing eight computers and thousands of digital images from his Internet business, L&M Enterprises.
Jones presented documentation that the women in the photos prompting the raid were in fact 19 years old when the photographs were taken, the Herald said.
That raid occurred six months after Jones was first questioned over an anonymous tip accusing him of making a porn video depicting underage girls, the newspaper said. McHenry County Judge Sharon Prather is expected to rule in mid-December whether the search was legal – and, if she rules it illegal, the newspaper said, it would "effectively" kill the prosecution's case.
Jones has testified he met in April 2000 with a sheriff's detective acting on the anonymous tip and offered proof his models were 18 years old or older. ""I told Detective (James) Wagner that we never in fact had done such things (involving minors)," Jones told the court. "I told him should he ever have a question about the age of any of our models on our Web site, to feel free to stop back at any time and I will provide him with identification documents."
But police six months later used two photos from his Website to press a judge to issue a search warrant of his business and his home, the Herald said, telling the judge they had information the pictures "showed two models who were probably minors."
