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Wed 8 Jul, 2009 02:54 am
Prosecutors in Child Porn Case to Seize Home
Mike Scarcella
The National Law Journal
July 7, 2009
Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Kentucky don't just want to
put Joseph Robert Leitner in prison for years. The federal government
wants his house.
Leitner, 62, pleaded guilty last week to charges that he possessed
more than 30,000 images of child pornography, and he agreed to
give up his home in the Chevy Chase subdivision of Lexington,
court records show. A copy of the plea agreement is here.
Leitner, who was indicted last year, has been held in custody
since October 2008. He pleaded guilty to one count of downloading
child pornography in a case bolstered by images and computers taken
from his home last year. Leitner faces between five and 20 years in prison.
Sentencing is scheduled for October. His lawyer, Jeffrey Darling,
was not immediately reached for comment on Monday.
The property forfeiture marked the first time that prosecutors
in the Eastern District of Kentucky have seized a home in a child
pornography investigation. The forfeiture of houses more often
occurs in drug prosecutions.
"He used his house as a protective shield to allow his criminal activity
to go undetected," said Kyle Edelen, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's
Office. Prosecutors, he said, based the forfeiture decision on the number
of images and the frequency of the downloads.
U.S. District Judge Karl Forester signed a preliminary judgment (.pdf)
of forfeiture June 30, ordering the government to provide notice
and conduct ancillary proceedings to determine whether any third
parties have rights to Leitner's property. "We're not going to just
rip someone from their home or leave innocent people without homes,"
Edelen said.
In February 2008, a defendant in the Northern District of Texas
forfeited his house in a child pornography case. "We're taking the war
on child exploitation very seriously and we're making it very personal.
None of your property is safe if you use it to exploit children -- you can
even lose your home," then-U.S. Attorney Richard Roper said
in a statement at the time the defendant was sentenced to
10 years in prison.
In an interview, Roper, who is now a partner at Thompson &
Knight in Dallas, called forfeiture in child pornography cases
"cutting-edge theory" and urged prosecutors to use discretion.
Forfeiture, Roper said, should be based on a case-by-case basis.
"Just because the statute gives you the authority to forfeit property
doesn't mean you must do it."
This article first appeared on The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
I understand this legal theory is being considered for application
to those who use their homes as shields for preparation inaccurate income tax forms.
When he gets out of prison at age 82,
he better have the necessary cash to buy another house,
or hone his panhandling skills. Maybe he can go back to work
doing whatever he did up to the time that he was arrested.
@OmSigDAVID,
I agree that there needs to be something done with these guys but arent we gtting a bit too severe with the punishment?
Criminal photography must be avenged.
@OmSigDAVID,
hard to tell from the article if he just collected or produced, if he was guilty of producing child pornography in the home, the forfeit seems reasonable no questions asked
on the other side of the coin, he was involved in a particularly heinous crime, the cost to the taxpayer to track down these creeps should be defrayed somehow
my other opinion, those found guilty of producing child porn should receive the death penalty, it's a worse crime than murder in my mind
@farmerman,
murder for the victim is a one and done
abuse is almost always a lifetime struggle, plus abuse victims tend to abuse themselves, the crime creates more predators and victims
@djjd62,
We see things differently. I see many of these sex predators as very sick. SHould we fry everyone found clinically depressed?
@farmerman,
well i did specify the producers not necessarily all predators, predators are bad enough, but if your filming or producing images of yourself or others abusing children i say that's worthy of the death penalty
A woman in Oregon was evicted from her house for three years for feeding bears!
They said the bears would never leave as long as she was there and that it would take three years for the bears to move on.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/woman_who_fed_bears_sentenced.html
I am thinking that this man should keep his house.
He is thinking clearly about how to afford his house while in jail and the answer is to have the state take it.
There for he will not be in debt to tax
he will not be responsible for bills
He wont have to pay the mortgage
he wont have to deal with break ins
HE is getting the nice end of the deal. And I bet he anticipates dying in jail so he wont have to deal with all of those bills EVER again if that happens.
i say leave the house. Let him go in debt for it while in jail and when he gets out, let him try to bust his ass to take care of all that. Pre-occupy him.
@djjd62,
djjd62 wrote:
Quote:hard to tell from the article if he just collected or produced,
if he was guilty of producing child pornography in the home,
the forfeit seems reasonable no questions asked
He was only accused of possessing images
that he downloaded from the Internet.
It does not appear that he was accused of having contact with anyone.
We shoud not cloud the issue.
Quote:on the other side of the coin, he was involved in a particularly heinous crime,
the cost to the taxpayer to track down these creeps should be defrayed somehow
Yeah; we shoud do the same thing to burglars, tax cheats, and murderers; also DWI.
Quote:my other opinion, those found guilty of producing child porn should receive the death penalty,
it's a worse crime than murder in my mind
That sounds interesting; will u
elucidate ?
@djjd62,
djjd62 wrote:
Quote:well i did specify the producers not necessarily all predators,
predators are bad enough, but if your filming or producing images
of yourself or others abusing children i say that's worthy of the death penalty
That 's
RIGHT
and those producers -- the girls and boys who take nude pictures of themselves with their cellphones -- and use the Internet
to send them to their friends & classmates shoud be included in that.
Thay shoud
NOT get away with that.
@djjd62,
If the girls and boys who take nude pictures of themselves
with their cellphones -- and use the Internet to send them
to their friends & classmates
don 't have houses of their own,
then that 's
a shame that thay can get away with that !
Their dwellings shoud be taken, regardless of WHO owns them to avenge that
despicable crime.
@OmSigDAVID,
Major stupid this confiscation thing. Should his heirs be punished? Had he been involved in producing and selling, maybe they could make a case but still, why should any potential heirs, totally innocent, be punished.
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