Paul Franke was curious about kiddie porn

[TheMorningStar]

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/archive/x833724499/g1a913693b67e1020c13375650682b976d8db6e3809ca4b.jp g

Paul Franke has an 11 year old son! He is out on NO bail. He faces 11 child porn charges, but only because..."I was only looking to see how easy it was to get it. It was very easy, only a couple of clicks. It was nothing. A child could have found it. A kid my son's age could find it."
Nice excuse asswipe!

FRAMINGHAM — A Framingham man does not deny downloading child pornography from the Internet, but said he did so only to find out how easy it would be for children to find it online.

Paul Franke, 43, pleaded not guilty yesterday in Framingham District Court to 11 child pornography-related charges and was released without bail.

After his court appearance, Franke, father of an 11-year-old boy, admitted he downloaded the more than 200 images from a file-sharing network, but not for personal gratification.


The state police served the warrant Monday night.

"The defendant was present during the execution of the warrant," said Clayton. "He stated he was the one in possession of the child pornography, and it was his computer."

Police searched the computer files and found at least 200 different child pornography files, the prosecutor said.

Franke was charged with six counts of possession of child pornography, three counts of possession of obscene matter, distribution of an image or video of a child performing a sexual act and distribution of an image or video of a nude child.



http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x875595719/Child-porn-suspect-says-it-was-very-easy-to-get

[Lizard]

Police searched the computer files and found at least 200 different child pornography files, the prosecutor said.

Sorry, dude, you went way beyond mere curiosity here.

[Ruby]

How did this come to the attention of the police, exactly? Very odd.


And yes, 200 downloaded images is far beyond mere curiosity. I'd just search for it, and see what was available. No need to do the actual download if you're just curious what's out there....

[TheMorningStar]

How did this come to the attention of the police, exactly? Very odd.

Great question with an interesting answer. (from the article)
State police assigned to the Middlesex district attorney's office's cyber protection unit began an investigation in April, prosecutor Dave Clayton said.

They logged onto a peer-to-peer network, in which people can share different audio, video and picture files via the Internet.

On that site, they located a file they knew to be a child pornography video, and the investigators tracked down a computer in Framingham that had downloaded the video, Clayton said.

They then remotely searched the computer and found at least nine other files consistent with child pornography and obtained a search warrant for Franke's Alexander Street home.

[Ruby]

Thank you, TMS. So, is this saying that the cyber crimes unit can REMOTELY search your computer for offending items PRIOR to obtaining a search warrant based on probable cause? Does this sound FUCKED to anyone besides me??

[SoUncool]

That is way fucked up. I understand their desire to get pervs but how do we know they aren't just randomly accessing our home computers for sheer entertainment???

[Rob Taylor]

I once hit some child porn while surfing, ironically not for pornography but for Russian stuff when my blog was more political. I shot a quick email to the FBI and got a call on my cell phone 10 minutes later. No harm no foul and the FBI was very nice and helpful. They don't make these arrests by mistake.

If you see child porn you report it, end of story. If you don't you're a pervert and a communist.

[Ruby]

I'm not saying they made an arrest "by mistake." If this guy downloaded and saved 200 images to his computer, he was clearly "engaged" with it.

His guilt notwithstanding, I was taking exception to the method used to implicate him. Because we do have due process for a reason.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Thank you, TMS. So, is this saying that the cyber crimes unit can REMOTELY search your computer for offending items PRIOR to obtaining a search warrant based on probable cause? Does this sound FUCKED to anyone besides me??

The dude and the cops were both on a peer-to-peer network. When you do that and allow file sharing, you are in essence saying "Come here and feel free to look at what I've got... what's mine is yours for the taking". The network bypasses any firewalls or other security you may have in place because that is the intended purpose of p2p networks.

Under those circumstances, I doubt a search warrant is needed. When they did the actual physical search of the computer in his home, they had a warrant.

Why did he keep the crap if he just downloaded it for shits-n-giggles???