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Clarence Worley

By Clarence Worley
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Clarence Worley

Clarence Worley 22

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Moderators, please move this to another forum if this post should not be in this forum.  

Apologies for the long post.  I’m a first time poster but long time lurker.  I know that Surly has so many experts on many subjects and thought I would take a chance to see if anybody in the Surly community could help.

A good friend of mine was just arrested and charged with a crime that anybody’s first reaction would be absolute disgust and your first instinct would be to distance yourself from the situation.  I’ve had enough experience with law enforcement to know that they don’t always do proper thorough investigations and are quick to assume and prove you’re guilty so I’m giving my friend the benefit of the doubt especially based on the evidence that I’m currently aware of.   

Here is the situation.  My friend received an email over a year ago and he clicked on the link.  The link had content that is illegal to download and distribute.  The content was earmarked and as soon as my friend clicked on the link, the information was reported to local authorities.  The first police department that received the info decided not to act on it.  It was a one time incident and It was clear to them that as soon as my friend clicked on the link he knew he had viewed illegal content and closed the webpage, but the crime had already been committed.  

The info was passed on to another police department that has jurisdiction over the county that my friend resides.  That police department decided to act on the information over a year after the incident occurred and just arrested him and charged him with possession and intent to distribute.  He never distributed the content.  

My friend’s life has already been ruined over something that was done by mistake and any of us could do.  I work for a Tech company and never click on links if I don’t recognize the sender because of all of the security awareness training I gave gone through.  Not everyone goes through this kind of training and are naive.   

Also, my friend’s aunt is a retired sheriff and called the first police department that received the info.  This is why we know the first police department which is a major metropolitan police department decided not to get an arrest warrant when they first received the info.  The second police department that decided to arrest him is in a more rural part of the state.  

Has anybody had experience with anything like this?  This seems like a case of entrapment on the surface, and I can’t believe that a major email service provider would allow distribution of illegal content and wait for someone to accidentally download illegal content and then share the info with local authorities instead of preventing the distribution of the continent in the first place. This seems like a sting operation that an innocent man got caught up in.   

I do believe my friend is innocent and deserves every opportunity to have his case argued in court and given every opportunity to clear his name if he is found innocent.  I want to make sure he has access to all of the resources available to get a fair trial.  Everyone close to him is rallying around him because of the person he is.  

I also believe that when you are arrested for a crime like this that it shouldn’t become public record until you are tried and convicted.  The local community that has no information on the facts of the case is already labeling him a monster because his arrest is now public record.  I can’t believe that something like this can happen and how vulnerable we all are if your life can be ruined over accidentally clicking on the wrong link.

Any advice from the Surly community is extremely appreciated.  

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Clarence Worley

Clarence Worley 22

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Not at all.  His wife is devastated and has had a life of tragedy.  Talked to them both this morning now that he is out on bail and they were both breaking down.  This is a dude that is a true patriot and has spent a big portion of his life in the Middle East diffusing bombs and has partial hearing loss because a bomb went off while he was diffusing it.  He always puts others first.  He has always been there for me when I needed him so trying to do everything I can to help him and his wife.  

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Clarence Worley

Clarence Worley 22

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I know the circumstances of the case sound unbelievable and I know I don’t have all of the facts.  Like I said, I took a chance posting on this forum to see if anybody has good legal advice.  I just want to make sure he gets a proper defense.  We should try to assume someone is innocent until the facts are presented and the case has been tried not the other way around.   

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Judge Roybeanbag

Judge Roybeanbag 11820

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On a serious note, if he is innocent it should be fairly straightforward for a decent computer forensics lawyer/firm to confirm what actually happened, or didn’t happen.  Yeah it would suck to be falsely accused and have to spend the money defending yourself, but it seems like it shouldn’t be hard to prove if all he did was receive an unsolicited email and click on an attachment.  

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txhorns

txhorns 2413

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Only thing he can do is to hire a great lawyer and let them do their work.  They should be able to get the details of the case.  Seems like if it was a sting operation, which clearly seems to be the case if your friend is telling the truth, that the authorities should have access to exactly what he clicked on and how long he views the content.  That info would be vital to his case.

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hobbes2702

hobbes2702 13054

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Should be pretty easy to determine the validity of that story with a decent forensic analysis of the PC.

It also should be pretty easy to determine the validity of that story just from hearing it. Sounds like the dude is prolly into kiddie porn.

Edited by hobbes2702
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Clarence Worley

Clarence Worley 22

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Thanks everyone for the serious and less serious replies.  Humor often is the best medicine for the harshness of life.   He does have one of the best lawyers that has experience defending cases like this.  He doesn’t know how he is going to afford it but knows he needs the best defense lawyer he can find.

He could be lying but can’t imagine that he would lie to his wife, closest friends, and family when all of the facts will be learned and presented in court and make matters worse for himself.  I know everyone is wired differently though and many go into immediate survival mode not considering the additional damage they could do by not telling the truth.   

I will share other relevant info as soon as I get it.  


 

 

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txhorns

txhorns 2413

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You would think that the case would all hinge on what the email said and then how long the guy spent on the website.  If the email said “Click here to see naked underage girls/boys!” or if he stayed on the site for 30 minutes after clicking then he is properly fucked.  If the forensics show a random link and that he was on the site for just one minute then he will be fine.

As someone who has recently gone through something similar with a friend (it’s all in a thread around here) I can almost guarantee you that your friend is not being 100% truthful.  You just hope that he’s lying about what the link said and not whether he is a frequent viewer of said stuff.  For instance if he clicked on a link for “young girls” and then immediately got off the site when he saw they were underage then that’s ok but he would still be lying about the not knowing what he was clicking on.

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0xdeadbeef

0xdeadbeef 1652

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When you say "content was earmarked and as soon as my friend clicked on the link, the information was reported to local authorities", it smells of BS.   Either your friend is lying, or you are intentionally or unknowingly mis-reporting the details. 

  • Who exactly reported it to the authorities?  The ISP? 
  • What exactly was reported to authorities?
  • What does 'earmarked' mean in this context. That term is not one that is used in the tech field.

If the link was an 'http" and not an "https", the ISP can in fact see what file was being requested, and see the actual content of that file being sent back.  If the ISP does something called "Deep Packet Inspection", which many of them do, a child porn link very well could trigger a report to authorities.

But,

1) It's unlikely an illegal porn site or hacker collective is going to send out "http" links.  That would draw attention to them.  So who sent the mail? 

2) NOBODY, is going to charge for a single link. Many email clients download embedded images automatically in email...those are all links. A link could says it's a go fund me campaign.  A link could be hidden by a URL shorteners making it impossible to see where the link is really going.   

One time is explainable....but spending an hour on the same site....clicking multiple other links on that site...saving the images to your hard drive. That's different.

Get a copy of the arrest warrant; I suspect what your friend is telling you is not the full story.

 

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Clarence Worley

Clarence Worley 22

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Thanks everyone for the insights.

This is a learning experience for me as much as anything else. 

I admit I have had some skepticism since I first learned about this as well.  I haven’t misreported anything purposely because I need expert point of views.  I probably shouldn’t have said my friend is completely innocent because at the end of the day you have to be smarter and can’t be easily duped.  I wholeheartedly don’t think someone’s life should be ruined over something like this if it was his first offense.  Agree with those that say that he may need a therapist.  That’s what we should try to do as a society instead of sentencing people to a life of ruin over a moment of weakness. 

Also, it seems that my friend has been cooperating from the very beginning with law enforcement which may not have been the smartest thing to do.  He admitted clicking on a link instead of saying that wasn’t me or that was someone renting my house at around the time the incident happened or my IP address got hacked, etc. He is super honest and trusts law enforcement because he has family members in law enforcement.  We are on different ends of the political spectrum as well and have had debates about this.  

I also just let some good friends of ours whose kids have been around our friend and whose kids love him, and they said they would be a character witness if needed and they would have no issues with their kids being around him now that they know what he was charged with.  Their reaction when I told them confirmed my point of view on this situation.  I told our friend and his wife beforehand that I had to tell them since it was now public record and we wanted them to find out from us.  He was ok with it.  

 

 

 

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Gatorubet

Gatorubet 30290

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One of my work colleagues represented his friend in a child pornography case. DA alleged the friend had child pornography on his computer. They sort of said it was child pornography inside a video that was non-child pornography. After charging the guy and ruining his life it turned out that the local law-enforcement jurisdiction had no IT expertise - and after two years of the shit show admitted that they had no chain of custody for the alleged pornographic content and also another small problem: they could not locate the alleged pornography anymore. 

Well, it sounds like I’m making this up, I’m not. My gut is that it’s pretty good odds that your friend might be hiding his conduct, my general distrust of law-enforcement and all district attorneys lets me keep an open mind.

Based upon my colleague’s experience, your friend should hire an attorney who is extremely competent in all matters IT, or one that has a great working relationship with a really kick ass IT defense expert. 

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31529

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9 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

One of my work colleagues represented his friend in a child pornography case. DA alleged the friend had child pornography on his computer. They sort of said it was child pornography inside a video that was non-child pornography. After charging the guy and ruining his life it turned out that the local law-enforcement jurisdiction had no IT expertise - and after two years of the shit show admitted that they had no chain of custody for the alleged pornographic content and also another small problem: they could not locate the alleged pornography anymore. 

Well, it sounds like I’m making this up, I’m not. My gut is that it’s pretty good odds that your friend might be hiding his conduct, my general distrust of law-enforcement and all district attorneys lets me keep an open mind.

Based upon my colleague’s experience, your friend should hire an attorney who is extremely competent in all matters IT, or one that has a great working relationship with a really kick ass IT defense expert. 

This, I suppose, is one of the reasons the feds take over most child pr0n cases; that is, IT experience.  Plus, in most of them it's pretty easy to secure a conviction if you don't fuck up the IT evidentiary aspects, so it's a big fun conviction on a case that will no doubt draw some public attention.

A case that the feds pass on must be pretty flawed.  If it involved email/the internet, then they have jurisdiction, as they do in most all of them.

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Rimbo

Rimbo 26052

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I had a friend who got investigated by the feds for child porn because he had photos of his toddler daughter running around in her diapers on his computer. No charges were filed in the end.

So yeah, the accusation alone is nothin.

1 minute ago, Clarence Worley said:

100% agree Parliament.  Everything that we are doing is to support our friend’s wife as much as anything else.  We want to make sure she is taken care of regardless of the outcome.  

help us help you

pics of friend's wife?

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Gil Bang

Gil Bang 25999

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3 hours ago, Clarence Worley said:

Thanks everyone for the serious and less serious replies.  Humor often is the best medicine for the harshness of life.   He does have one of the best lawyers that has experience defending cases like this.  He doesn’t know how he is going to afford it but knows he needs the best defense lawyer he can find.

He could be lying but can’t imagine that he would lie to his wife, closest friends, and family when all of the facts will be learned and presented in court and make matters worse for himself.  I know everyone is wired differently though and many go into immediate survival mode not considering the additional damage they could do by not telling the truth.   

I will share other relevant info as soon as I get it.  


 

 

Wife, friends, and family are EXACTLY who he'd lie to.  Why the fuck would he lie to a total stranger? 

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Clarence Worley

Clarence Worley 22

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I don’t disagree with you Gil Bang.  We usually rationalize things based on how we would react to a situation.  He has every reason to lie us.  I also know that he has always been very transparent with us even when it is bordering on tmi and risking damaging our friendship. 

He should also know his lies will be easily exposed and will do much more damage than admitting that he fucked up and is trying to cover it up.  He knows that I’m a hyper analytical/logical person and that I don’t believe the bullshit that he tends to comes across.

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Pig Bellmont

Pig Bellmont 8724

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2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

This, I suppose, is one of the reasons the feds take over most child pr0n cases; that is, IT experience.  Plus, in most of them it's pretty easy to secure a conviction if you don't fuck up the IT evidentiary aspects, so it's a big fun conviction on a case that will no doubt draw some public attention.

A case that the feds pass on must be pretty flawed.  If it involved email/the internet, then they have jurisdiction, as they do in most all of them.

A partner at one of my old firms defended one of these cases. He had to keep all discovery from the feds under lock and key and no associates wanted to go near that case or risk even accessing any of the docs. We’d make a game out of telling younger lawyers “Hey you should ask Brian if he needs help on one of his new cases. Big time stuff with the FBI”

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txhorns

txhorns 2413

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@Clarence Worley this is not easy to do but is necessary, I know from experience and have major regrets, but you need to really check on the mental health of your friend.  Make sure that he does not have access to any guns.  Make sure there are no ways he can harm himself.  Don’t just ask him about his mental health but really look into it.  Get his wife involved.  Do it even if you don’t think it is necessary.

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Clarence Worley

Clarence Worley 22

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Really good advice txhorns.  This has been top of mind for me.   We had a neighbor that committed suicide a couple of years ago.  I know what one of my friend’s dreams is and because of this situation, he potentially had to give up one of his dreams which is where he wants to retire.  Some of you make think I’m foolish, but I did something this morning that would ensure that dream can still happen:  I am concerned about his and his wife’s mental health.  So I wanted to give them some hope.  It was the least that I could do.  

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