Sex Offenders Obtaining Child Porn From Their Cases Through the Courts by Robert Rosso
Federal courts are providing convicted sex offenders with free child pornography, photo-copied images furnished by the courts that are being used for self-gratification, financial gain, or are being taken to group parties where convicted predators trade them like baseball cards.
In the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), some inmates who have been convicted of child pornography and other child-related sex crimes are acquiring photographs of their underage victims directly from the same district courts in which they were sentenced. Through a loop-hole in the federal appeals process, these predators are receiving some if not all of the very disturbing images that were once used to convict them, often free of charge.
“If I didn’t see it done, and see how easy it was, I would have never believed it,” a inmate who only wants to be identified as “Drew” tells Gorilla Convict. “It would be like getting convicted of a drug offense and then being sent to prison, then once you get there the prosecutor sends you the drugs that you get busted with.”
Drew explained that in 2014, while undergoing medical treatment at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, he was laying in his bed reading a book when a counselor walked in and delivered to his room-mate a manila envelope containing “legal mail, that is, correspondence that is unmonitored by staff.” However, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Program Statement # 5265.14, although staff may not read correspondence properly marked “Legal Mail,” they are required to open said mail in the presence of the intended inmate and check for contraband. In this case, Drew said, the counselor ignored policy.
“Just as soon as the counselor shot out the door, like, 4 or 5 weirdo’s came running in the cell all giddy and giggling and shit,” Drew recalled. “I could tell right away that they were all a bunch of chomo’s (prison-speak for “child molesters”), and they were all excited and they said things like, ‘did you get?’ ‘are they here?’ ‘let me see!’. Man, I wanted to believe that they were talking about some dope, but I had this real bad feeling inside.”
Drew’s suspicion was confirmed, he said, when his room-mate unabashedly pulled out photocopies of his victims: naked children whose name’s he proudly recited to the other predators in the room, before he gave them some general background information about each child and stated the dollar amount he wanted for each individual photo.
“Before I went to the FMC I was warned that there were a lot of sex offenders in the Butner Prison Complex,” said Drew,” but man oh man, never in my wildest nightmares would I have imagined that chomo’s – in any prison – were running in chomo gangs and selling child pornography that they were getting straight from the court.”
From the FMC, Drew was transferred across the Butner Prison-Complex to the Federal Correctional Institution 2, where he spent several months in the Special Housing Unit (SHU). Now serving time at a federal prison in Indiana, he recounts to Gorilla Convict about an incident that occurred in the SHU at Butner a few weeks before he left.
“A counselor or a secretary brought some legal mail to a chomo living in the cell next to me, ” he said. “When she opened up the envelope and looked inside for contraband, she apparently found some really disturbing images of children being raped and freaked out. Well, to make a long story short, the dude filed a Bp-8 (Administrative Remedy) claiming that he needed the photos for his appeal, and he won – they gave him back the photos.”
Under the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure (FRAP), inmates have the right to receive from the courts any documents that may benefit their appeal, including child pornography. Additionally, those convicted of sex crimes can receive these images free of charge, so long as they can prove that they are indigent, or have little money on their prison accounts.
Paris Cherer, a convicted sex offender serving more than 20-years for trying to have sex with an underage child that he met on the internet, has served time at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona, home to some of the worst sex offenders in the country. In a 2012 interview that he did with ConvictInternational.com, a now defunct website, he spoke candidly about the child pornography that was being distributed inside USP Tucson.
“The perverts would routinely meet at a picnic table on the yard and – among a standing room only crowd – would trade photographs of little Tommy or little Jimmy or, more appropriately, little Tommy dressed in an erotica Halloween costume and little Jimmy laying naked in a pool,” Cherer stated. Continuing on, Cherer wanted people to know that “there is honor even among sex offenders, and the disgusting, obscene, trading of helpless children shocks even most of us.”
“To see the openness and glee in these perverts eyes everyday at mail call as they waited for their precious packages filed with child porn – courtesy of the courts – is horrifying,” Cherer said.
A convicted bank robber who served time at USP Tucson with Paris Cherer, not only corroborates this story, but adds: “In 2010 they busted a ring of child molesters that were all engaged in a child porn trading ring. Only problem was they were all great jailhouse lawyers, and they got away with it because they claimed that the naked photos were part of an appeal that they had concocted. It was pretty disgusting how they got away with it, and even worse to see how happy they were because they knew the staff couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”
The convicted bank robber, Jay Williams, is currently serving time at FCI Terre Haute where he spoke to Gorilla Convict. Incarcerated “most of his life,” as he says, Williams has seen the federal prison system change drastically.
“In the 80’s in 90’s, it was all about locking up drug offenders and black guys convicted of crack, now there’s this push to lock up every child porn pervert who goes on the internet and looks at a photo of a naked little kid, ” said Williams. “If that’s what they’re going to do fine – then do it. But don’t turn around and furnish them with these same photos once there in prison. It’s like re-victimizing the children all over again.”
Convicts have had a long history of manipulating the system to suit their needs and as more and more sex offenders are entering the confines of the Bureau of Prisons they are slowly learning the tricks of the trade and facilitating the entrance of child porn into the prison system. And in most cases it is the specific child porn and images which got them convicted int he first place.
If you like this then check out Getting Old in Prison by Robert Rosso.