It may be the first court ruling leaning on the Supreme Court's earlier finding that virtual imagery - computer-generated images and not actual people - can be deemed free speech and not child porn. An Akron man won his child porn case on that basis April 15.
Brian Sparks was found not guilty on seven counts of using a minor illegally in a nudity-oriented matter and pandering obscenity involving a minor, according to WEWS-TV. The entire case rested on images on Sparks's computer, but Judge Jane Bond agreed with the defense that if you can't determine what is actual from what is virtual, you can't knowingly possess child porn, the station said.
But Sparks isn't off the legal hook - Bond convicted him of rape and corruption of a minor, involving a boy Sparks had been accused of raping over nine years, beginning when the boy was 10 years old. Sparks faces life behind bars in that instance, WEWS said. No sentencing date has yet been reported.
Adult Sites Against Child Pornography executive director Joan Irvine minced no words about the Sparks case.
"It's very hard for me to be neutral about this decision since this person repeatedly raped a child for nine years," Irvine told AVNOnline.com. "Thankfully, he will be in prison for life for this."
But she also questioned the application of the virtual imagery defense in the case because it also involved a man raping a boy. "Is this what the people in the industry have spent years fighting for? I wonder if it was just easier for the legal system to convict him on rape and not have to spend the time really perusing the virtual image issue," she said.
In other news regarding the battle against child porn:
DuPAGE, Ill.> A College of DuPage student has been named as a child porn possessor in a federal complaint, and the 19-year-old student says the feds are making a big mistake. "I just got a lot of bad e-mails from someone," said Brian Rasmussen. He claims owners of a child porn site were able to e-mail him through his normal Internet activity of chat groups, but the government complaint says agents confronted him and that he admitted to owning three groups and moderating twenty pertaining to child porn, according to the Daily Herald.
CARY, Ill. - Child porn charges against attorney John Roth have resulted in his being dismissed as Cary's village attorney, the move being made April 13 and a replacement expected to be named April 20. But Mayor Steve Lamal insisted the main issue in the dismissal was Roth's availability while he fights the child porn charges, according to the Pioneer Press.
MINNEAPOLIS - Thrice-convicted sexual exploiter of minor girls Dennis E. Mentzos has been hit with child porn possession, aiding and abetting the mailing of child porn, and sexual child exploitation. This case accuses Mentzos of coercing a minor girl to photograph herself in sexually explicit conduct, according to the St. Paul Pioneer-Press.
PALATINE, Ill. - A tip from U.S. Customs to local police turned into a child porn possession arrest against Dennis Dlask, whose computer had child porn images downloaded from the Internet after Dlask voluntarily allowed officers to search, according to the Pioneer Press.
GUAM - Guam police and the FBI are looking into a case involving a teacher put on administrative leave April 14, after a middle school student at his school told administrators he got a computer disk containing child porn from the teacher's home, according to the Pacific Daily News.
