Clarence Worley

It was either this or joining a “Friends of people that have been charged with downloading kiddie porn support group”. I may need to start one if they don’t exist.

Based on what I’ve learned, conviction rates are very high especially if the Feds are involved. I’m sure many of these cases end in plea deals vs. risking a trial. I suspect most people charged with a crime this will do anything they can to avoid prison to avoid being public enemy #1 in prison. He may be able to avoid prison time but he will most certainly be put on the sex offender registry for at least 10 years. No matter what his life will be changed forever.

I have an off-road truck and could do something like this and claim I took a wrong turn like in a Chevy chase movie.

Or I could just respond with “I’ve never met him” or “I don’t recall” to every question. Could be a bold strategy.

Good advice @Chopper. Unfortunately I am pretty healthy and have a really good memory. I could get concussed. Maybe volunteer to be a crash test dummy or stuntman or something.

I’m prepared for that. I am not lying for my friend under any circumstances. I’ve already told my friend that if he is lying to me or I am put in a position to have to lie for him and put myself and my family at risk our friendship is over. It could be a FAFO moment for him. Time will tell.

Pretty damn funny. But I think you’ve been watching too many lifetime movies. I can barely devote enough time and attention to my wife. No way I could have a relationship with two women at the same time and keep it under wraps. if there is any advice I can pass along is that everyone should try to live in a rural community for a period of time. Like I said earlier, it exposes you to some interesting things and interesting people and changes your worldview on things. Being from a big city and traveling around the world, living in a rural area for a period of time has had the biggest impact on my views. Believe it or not it has made me more liberal being amongst more conservative people and dealing with the shit that they have to deal with on a daily basis and had to deal with for most of their lives.

Touché @goatsaag. However, at my company we take data security very seriously. You can’t pass the training unless you’re paying attention. If there is a violation of our data security policy, it is a fireable offense. We handle financial data for some of the biggest companies in the world. If there is a data breach, because of the immense liability, it would potentially bankrupt the company. The company I work for is a relatively small company too.

@GoPokes83, as has been mentioned upthread, after all of this my buddy really may have a future in politics.

Agree @Captainant. there is nothing else that I can do. I just want to make sure he gets the best defense he can afford. It is out of my hands and in his attorney’s hands now. I would think that anybody in my position would do the same thing. Maybe not post anonymously to a message board full of strangers but I thought it was the best way to quickly get expert opinions and confirm the best course of action for my friend and my wife and I.

@Neonmoon, I work for a software company and work on the business development side. We have IT security policies and are required to take security awareness training each year since we handle extremely confidential data and have a SaaS platform. I am somewhat IT savvy but in no way an expert. I’m knowledgeable enough to at least ask the right questions or suspect what may have happened if my friend’s story is true.

There is one good thing that may emerge from all of this. My friend said regardless of the outcome he is going to do everything in his power to make sure what is happening to him doesn’t happen to anybody else. He has obviously been very naive about a lot of things especially since he has family and friends in law enforcement. He said the conditions of the county jail were the worst he has ever experienced. He said the conditions of the county jail were worse than the cells that they detain suspected terrorists in the Middle East. He said they took his mug shot after they strip searched him. When he was the most humiliated and angry because the corrections officer kept kicking my friend’s bare ankles with his boots during the strip search, that is when they took his mugshot that is now public record. if anything, my buddy has now personally experienced what I’ve been telling him about our criminal justice system. At the risk of getting too cloak roomy, our criminal justice system is designed to produce criminals not rehabilitate them. He said there were a few people in his jail cell that couldn’t wait to go back to prison and wanted to skip the pre-trial arraignment. When everyone found out what he was charged with and this was his first offense he was the one that everyone distanced themselves from. He was ready to defend himself if he had to, but luckily no one attempted to harm him.

@Jerry Callo. Yep. I actually brought that up yesterday when my friend told me he talked to the police without a lawyer present. It is a movie but I imagine that scene although comedic is a real scenario. I didn’t expect Jerry Callo contribute to this thread. 😀

@Jerry Callo, wholeheartedly agree. Since you did a masterful job defending the two youths that were falsely accused of shooting and killing the clerk and helping the local police department solve the crime with the help of your lovely fiancée, I will definitely heed your advice.

He has hired an attorney. I met with my friend yesterday because like everyone has said, the details of the story don’t add up. This didn’t originate with an email after all. He searched for a site and went to a site that he has visited before that supposedly has legal content. He didn’t share the name of the site and I didn’t want know. That’s for his lawyer to investigate. He said there were disclaimers that the content was legal. This particular time he was browsing the site and he said he saw a link to something that had “Mega …” in the name. I will let you use your imagination. He said there was nothing to indicate it was a link to illegal content. When he clicked on the link a bunch of pop ups started opening. He panicked and spent the next several minutes closing pop ups that were opening. He said he didn’t see what images were in the popups. He was focused on closing them. It seems like he downloaded malware or a virus and didn’t know it. All of this has been shared with local authorities which I told him was not the smartest thing to do but he said he had nothing to hide. I told him it didn’t matter. Their job is not to prove your innocence. I thought this originated with an email that he received because it was what his wife indicated but she was distraught when we talked to her and didn’t have all of the facts herself. My friend may have also told her this originated with an email because he was extremely embarrassed. Also it was the email service provider that reported it and they shut down his email account not too long after the incident occurred. So the good news I suppose is that this was not some sort of sting operation and my friend was not being targeted based on prior activity on the internet. So question to any IT experts that would know. Could my friend have downloaded malware or a virus that attached illegal images to emails or sent emails with links to illegal content? My friend is not IT savvy and had no idea that this is what may have happened. The images that the cops had in their possession had some sort of digital watermark on them and that’s how they were detected. My friend probably should’ve done what @mchookem’s mother did and basically self-reported it. I told my friend and his wife that they need to make sure a cyber crimes or cyber forensic expert is hired. If his story is true then I would think it could be easily proven. I also let him know that if he is lying to me that our friendship is over and I will find out if he is lying to me because all of the evidence that will be presented in court. This is the time to be completely honest with me and that this is affecting everyone in his orbit especially since the cops have been monitoring his activity, who he associates with, etc. He knows if he is lying to his closest friends and family he risks losing everything and isolating himself. Also the local police department has been watching my friend and monitoring his activity over the past several months after they received the info from the email service provider. Evidently this was the only incident of viewing or downloading illicit content that they found but they still had to arrest and charge him. This is all I’m going to share for now until the case goes to trial but I did want to share an update because there is more to the story and wanted to clear up some of the misinformation that led people to believe this was a bs story. I would still like other’s opinions especially the IT experts around here.