307 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
307 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
ú Newsgroup: news.admin.policy
|
|
ú Message-ID: <C4DGxH.3H7@redpoll.neoucom.edu>
|
|
ú Subject: Akron Beacon Journal Story about Munroe Falls BBS
|
|
|
|
Fellow USENET news administrators,
|
|
|
|
The following is a front page story published in the Akron Beacon
|
|
Journal on, Monday Mar. 22, 1993, under the byline of Charlene Nevada,
|
|
Beacon Journal staff writer. This story is copyrighted by the Akron
|
|
Beacon Journal, and commercial use or resale of this information is
|
|
forbidden. Permission to post this story to USENET has been generously
|
|
granted by Mr. Stewart Warner, Deputy Managing Editor.
|
|
|
|
I also talked with Charlene Nevada, court reporter, and she
|
|
approved my request to post the story, so long as her editor agreed.
|
|
|
|
If you appreciate the story and permissions, you may snail-mail
|
|
c/o Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, Ohio 44309-0640, USA to
|
|
express your thanks.
|
|
|
|
The agreement is that I post the story "in full" -- no selective
|
|
editing.
|
|
|
|
Typographical errors, etc. are mine. Watch out for double
|
|
"d"s... redpoll has a sticky "d" key.
|
|
|
|
Dick
|
|
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= begin copyrighted story =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
|
(front page - page A1)
|
|
Headline: Police say they were taking a byte out of crime
|
|
|
|
subhead: * Munroe Falls man was arrested for having X-rated pictures
|
|
on his computer bulletin board; his parents believe the sting operation
|
|
was politically motivated
|
|
|
|
BY CHARLENE NEVADA
|
|
Beacon Journal staff writer
|
|
|
|
When the police cars pulled up to David Lehrer's quiet Munroe
|
|
Falls street last June, it was a little like they were swooping down
|
|
on a major criminal.
|
|
|
|
Police Chief Steve Stahl went to the door and told Lehrer that he
|
|
had a search warrant to seize computer equipment belonging to Lehrer's
|
|
son, Mark. The chief told the elder Lehrer that there was reason to
|
|
believe Mark Lehrer, then 22, was using the computer and a modem to
|
|
disseminate matter harmful to juveniles.
|
|
|
|
Essentially, the chief said, it appeared that there were dirty
|
|
pictures on a popular computer bulletin board operated by the younger
|
|
Lehrer and that teenagers could use their own computers to view the
|
|
dirty pictures.
|
|
|
|
The police went through the Lehrers' home -- seizing, labeling
|
|
and photographing anything and everything that fit on the computer.
|
|
It was just like on a police television show, only it was happening in
|
|
Munroe Falls and the accused was a college student computer whiz.
|
|
|
|
Greg Lehrer, Mark's younger brother, remembers asking one of
|
|
the officers: ``Why don't you go
|
|
|
|
See COMPUTER, Page A4
|
|
|
|
(page A4)
|
|
|
|
(four column photograph - LEW STAMP/Beacon Journal)
|
|
Legend: David Lehrer (left) and his son Mark question why Munroe
|
|
Falls police targeted Mark's computer bulletin board, the Akron
|
|
Anomaly.
|
|
|
|
Headline: COMPUTER
|
|
subhead: * Lehrer received no jail time, no probation and a small
|
|
fine, but had to give up his beloved home computer
|
|
|
|
Continued from Page A1
|
|
|
|
out and find some real criminals?''
|
|
|
|
That was nine months ago.
|
|
|
|
Some might still ask that question.
|
|
|
|
The case of the State of Ohio vs. Mark Lehrer was closed last
|
|
week when Lehrer stood before a judge in Summit County and pleaded
|
|
guilty to one rather strange misdemeanor: attempted possession of a
|
|
criminal tool.
|
|
|
|
Lehrer and his family said the plea bargain was a way to put the
|
|
matter behind them without risking a jury trial and more legal
|
|
expenses. They consider the whole episode a witch hunt by Munroe
|
|
Falls police.
|
|
|
|
David Lehrer has said from the beginning that Munroe Falls police
|
|
only wanted to appropriate his son's high-powered computer -- which
|
|
they labeled a criminal tool -- for their own use.
|
|
|
|
Within the computing community, the case caused so much outrage
|
|
that some lawyers and accountants set up a defense fund to help
|
|
Lehrer. More than $1,500 came from all over the country.
|
|
|
|
Munroe Falls Police Chief Stahl is about as unhappy over the
|
|
resolution as the Lehrers.
|
|
|
|
Stahl wanted a felony conviction. The chief denied being on a
|
|
witch hunt for criminals in a relatively crime-free suburban
|
|
community.
|
|
|
|
Lehrer's attorney, Don Varian, said the prosecutor offered to
|
|
plea bargain because prosecutors would have had problems going to
|
|
trial: ``They would have lost and they knew it,'' he said.
|
|
|
|
On this much everyone agrees: Between last June and last week,
|
|
the case took lots of strange turns.
|
|
|
|
_The Akron Anomaly_
|
|
|
|
It started one day last spring when Munroe Falls police got a tip
|
|
from a Kent State University student who said he was concerned that
|
|
obscene material was available to juveniles through a computer
|
|
bulletin board known as the Akron Anomaly.
|
|
|
|
The Akron Anomaly was the baby of Mark Lehrer, a University of
|
|
Akron student. Lehrer has been into computers since he was in grade
|
|
school and his dad brought the first one home. Among people who love
|
|
computers, bulletin boards are a way to share ideas and programs.
|
|
Bulletin board users are a little like yesterday's ham radio
|
|
operators.
|
|
|
|
The operator of a computer bulletin board is usually someone who
|
|
has lots of games, pictures and programs to share.
|
|
|
|
Others can sign onto their own computers -- and with the aid of
|
|
a modem and telephone line -- tap into the bulletin board and copy the
|
|
files.
|
|
|
|
As computers go, Lehrer had a V-8 engine, a 486 IBM clone with
|
|
500 megabytes of memory. (The whole Bible could be stored in 1 1/2 of
|
|
those megabytes.)
|
|
|
|
Lehrer works at a computer store in Stark County. He was allowed
|
|
to buy accessories and upgrades at discount. His system -- not
|
|
including discs -- was valued at about $3,000.
|
|
|
|
The bulletin board was so successful that early last year a local
|
|
computer group called it one of the best around.
|
|
|
|
Those who wanted to use the bulletin board more than 45 minutes
|
|
a day were asked to pay $15 a year, which Lehrer applied to his phone
|
|
bill.
|
|
|
|
_X-rated material_
|
|
|
|
The board had an adult section with X-rated pictures and movies.
|
|
Those who wanted access to the adult section had to send Lehrer a
|
|
copy of a drivers's license and get a special clearance.
|
|
|
|
Computer users don't just take things from a bulletin board.
|
|
They contribute, too.
|
|
|
|
Programs and pictures sent to the Anomaly were received in sort
|
|
of an ``in'' basket. Lehrer then sorted them and filed them by category.
|
|
|
|
The X-rated stuff -- which Lehrer said was less than 2 percent of
|
|
the available files -- was put into the restricted-entry adult
|
|
category. According to Stahl, some of the X-rated files wound up in
|
|
the clean section.
|
|
|
|
One in particular troubled Stahl. It was labeled ``69'', a slang
|
|
term for oral sex, and had thre X's behind it.
|
|
|
|
To Stahl, that meant dirty. And since it wasn't in a
|
|
restricted-access section, anyone could see it.
|
|
|
|
But since Munroe Falls didn't actually have any outraged parents
|
|
complaining, the police set up a sting operation.
|
|
|
|
Working on the advice of prosecutors from the Cuyahoga Falls
|
|
Municipal Court, police found a 15-year-old volunteer and had him
|
|
apply for membership under a fake name. They sat him down at a
|
|
computer and had him press the button to access one of the X-rated
|
|
files. Then he left because his parents didn't want him viewing the
|
|
material.
|
|
|
|
Lehrer was charged with disseminating matter harmful to juveniles
|
|
and possession of criminal tool -- his computer.
|
|
|
|
At a preliminary hearing last June, Cuyahoga Falls Municipal
|
|
Judge James Bierce warned that more evidence would be needed to
|
|
convict Lehrer. Nonetheless, the matter was bound over to the grand
|
|
jury.
|
|
|
|
And that's where it died. Just why isn't clear. Grand jury
|
|
proceedings are secret.
|
|
|
|
Stahl said the grand jury didn't actually get to see the
|
|
pictures.
|
|
|
|
Varian has his own theory.
|
|
|
|
The police didn't have an independent witnesses saying they or
|
|
their children were offended, Varian said. All they had was the
|
|
15-year-old kid who was set up. That meant the jury would have had to
|
|
look at the issue of entrapment. Jurors might not have liked that.
|
|
|
|
_New charges_
|
|
|
|
But the matter didn't end with the grand jury no-billing the
|
|
issue of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
|
|
|
|
New charges surfaced.
|
|
|
|
When authorities seized Lehrer's computer, they also took those
|
|
shopping bags full of floppy discs. And apparently among them were
|
|
some sex pictures in which the subjects cound have been under 18.
|
|
|
|
So Lehrer was indicted for pandering obscenity involving minors.
|
|
|
|
It didn't matter that the pictures came from a disc and weren't
|
|
on line or available through the bulletin board.
|
|
|
|
The new charges made David Lehrer, Mark's father, suspect even
|
|
more that there was a hidden agenda.
|
|
|
|
_Politics at work?_
|
|
|
|
Lehrer chairs the city's charter review commission. Last May,
|
|
the commission voted not to make the police chief's job classified,
|
|
which would have offered Stahl a great measure of job protection.
|
|
|
|
Plus, after the bust, Susan Lehrer -- Mark's mother -- visited
|
|
the chief. She took notes. She said Stahl talked about how her son's
|
|
computer could be used in police work.
|
|
|
|
Stahl denied his actions were politically motivated. He also
|
|
denied wanting to get the computer, which is now in the hands of state
|
|
law enforcement officials.
|
|
|
|
The chief said he decided it would be wrong to ignore the case
|
|
just because Mark Lehrer's father held a public position.
|
|
|
|
Stahl denied digging through the floppies to find more to charge
|
|
Lehrer with. The Bureau of Criminal Investigation dit that, he said.
|
|
|
|
_Computer gone for good_
|
|
|
|
Mark Lehrer acknowledged having some adult files in the
|
|
unrestricted area. With 10,000 files to deal with, he said, it was a
|
|
clerical error.
|
|
|
|
Summit County Prosecutor Lynn Slaby said that it would have been
|
|
tough to convict Lehrer on the kiddie porn charges because proving the
|
|
ages of the people in the pictures would have been tough. Varian said
|
|
the women looked in the range of 16 to 20.
|
|
|
|
To salvage the case, prosecutors offered the plea bargain.
|
|
|
|
Lehrer said he agreed to it because expert witnesses -- people to
|
|
testify the people in the picture weren't under 18 -- would have cost
|
|
$6,000.
|
|
|
|
Most importantly, he said: ``I didn't want to go to trial for
|
|
child pornography. Juries sometimes convict people unfairly.''
|
|
|
|
He got no jail time, no probation and a small fine. But he had
|
|
to give up his computer.
|
|
|
|
``We did not endorse the plea agreement,'' Stahl said. He said
|
|
he still believes that Lehrer is guilty of disseminating matter
|
|
harmful to juveniles.
|
|
|
|
The chief said he isn't on an obscenity crusade. ``We're not
|
|
Ravenna,'' he said, referring to that city's anti-porn-crusading
|
|
mayor, Donald Kainrad.
|
|
|
|
To Lehrer -- who sees an empty room instead of a sophisticated
|
|
computer -- it's been a nightmare and the end of a great hobby.
|
|
|
|
``Being hit with child pornography charges'' was far from just, he
|
|
says. ``It's scary what people -- police and prosecuters -- can do to
|
|
a citizen.''
|
|
|
|
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= end copyrighted story =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
|
|
|
Please be careful out there.
|
|
Dick
|
|
--
|
|
Richard E. Depew, Munroe Falls, OH red@redpoll.neoucom.edu (home)
|
|
"...plug the RS-232 connector on the back side of the Mini Modem 2400 into
|
|
the RS-232 connector on your computer, then screw up." - modem instructions
|
|
---
|
|
* PCB/UseNet Gateway from Sparkware #3
|
|
|
|
|
|
ùHEADER:USENET
|
|
|
|
Path: channel1!uupsi!psinntp!uunet!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!news.uakron.edu!neoucom.edu!redpoll!red
|
|
From: red@redpoll.neoucom.edu (Richard E. Depew)
|
|
Newsgroups: akr.newsadmin,cle.general,oh.general,comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.policy
|
|
Subject: Akron Beacon Journal Story about Munroe Falls BBS
|
|
Summary: plead guilty to attempted possession of a criminal tool
|
|
Keywords: obscenity, entrapment, pandering, backups
|
|
Message-ID: <C4DGxH.3H7@redpoll.neoucom.edu>
|
|
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 02:44:04 GMT
|
|
Followup-To: news.admin.policy
|
|
Organization: Home, in Munroe Falls, OH
|
|
Lines: 285
|