He's accused of masquerading as Steven Spielberg's nephew at a Catholic high school - and he's under his third arrest, this time for allegedly possessing child porn.
Police told the Washington Post last Jan. 20 they found a depiction of males under 18 when they took dozens of videos, books, photographs, and documents while searching Jonathan Taylor Spielberg's home last week. He was arrested Jan. 19 for a misdemeanor child porn possession charged and released, the paper says.
That search came after he was hit with forgery and false claims charges in getting admitted to Paul VI High School in Fairfax City. Spielberg was charged with forging a public document by lying about his age in a legal petition to change his name, the Post says. He says he didn't know what led to the child porn charge and would not comment further, the paper reports.
The case apparently gets more confusing by the minute, the Post says, since Spielberg told police he's 27 years old but told Paul VI he was a teenager - and has a driver's license saying he's 20. Just how he tricked Paul VI officials into letting him enroll and what he did there remains a mystery, the paper says.
Paul VI parents received a letter over the weekend about the case. Some told the Post they were outraged that Spielberg had been admitted. The Archdiocese of Arlington says there's no reason to believe any current or former Paul VI student was involved in the child porn charge. Police, though, tell the Post a lack of cooperation from some Paul VI students and parents hindered the probe into Spielberg's activities.
There have been charges and countercharges over whether Spielberg got special treatment, including using the principal's parking space and sporadic class attendance. The school and the archdiocese seem to believe they were taken by "a first-class, sophisticated con man," the Post says.
The paper also says archdiocese officials reported a woman calling Paul VI in September 1998 saying Spielberg wanted to attend as research for a film in which he would play a high school student. The school ultimately received a transcript from an acting school which turned out not to exist.
When Spielberg failed to pay tuition and the school asked for it, the Post says, the school got a letter on the stationery of DreamWorks SKG, Steven Spielberg's production company, saying the Spielberg family was paying a private tutor for Jonathan, causing difficulty paying the Paul VI tuition.
