Holy crap, good find, Jaded.
On October 24, 1997, Grosenheider dropped off his personal computer for repair work at Upgraders, a computer repair shop in Austin, Texas. While conducting afinal quality assurance check of the computer on Thursday, October 30, 1997, Upgraders employee Patrick Rowan (Rowan) discovered an unusually large number of image files, known as "JPG's", on the computer's hard drive. Knowing that JPG's in large numbers often depict pornographic images, Rowan opened some of these files and found between two and five images of child *advertiser censored*. Rowan showed the images to his employer, Nathaniel Monks (Monks), the owner of Upgraders, as well as to two other employees, all of whom agreed that the images depicted child *advertiser censored*. The repairs now complete, the Upgraders staff returned the computer to the retail store for pick up. Grosenheider retrieved the computer some time later that day.
1
4 At approximately 9:00 a.m. the next morning, Friday, October 31, 1997, Monks contacted the Austin Police Department about the images Rowan had discovered. He spoke with Steven Meaux (Meaux), a vice officer, and informed Meaux about the images he had seen and the fact that the computer was now back in Grosenheider's possession. Meaux arrived at Upgraders thirty to forty-five minutes later. His primary purpose was to identify and interview the staff members who had seen the images. Meaux first entered the retail store, but an employee directed him to the tech shop, where Monks, Rowan, and the other employees who had seen the images were waiting. When Meaux got there, Monks told him that Grosenheider had brought the computer back that morning because the hard drive was still not operating properly, and that Rowan had begun working on it in the tech shop. As Meaux began to interview the assembled employees, another employee entered the tech shop and said that Grosenheider had again returned to the retail store, asking about his computer. Meaux told Monks to "stall" Grosenheider by telling him the store needed to order additional parts. Monks complied, and from the tech shop Meaux watched Grosenheider leave the retail store and drive away.
5 After Grosenheider left, Meaux completed his interview of Rowan, Monks, and the other employees about the images they had seen on the computer. They told him that the images depicted young girls approximately ten years old engaged in sexual conduct of various kinds. During this time, Rowan had been working on his repair of Grosenheider's computer, a process which took approximately fifteen minutes to complete. There is some dispute -which the district court expressly declined to resolve-whether Meaux then asked to see or Rowan offered to show him the pictures. In any event, Rowan attempted to access the images on the computer, only to find them "locked", that is, inaccessible without a password. The password lock had not appeared the day before. Unable to override the lock, Rowan asked another, more experienced Upgraders employee, Cary Richardson (Richardson), for help. By using another image viewing program, Richardson by-passed the lock. Rowan then showed Meaux the images he had seen the day before, as well as additional ones. After viewing between six and ten images, Meaux "had seen enough" to determine that the computer contained depictions of child *advertiser censored*.
6 At approximately 11:00 a.m., Meaux took the computer from Upgraders to his office at the Austin Police Department, and contacted Theodore Siggins (Siggins), a special agent with the United States Customs Service. Meaux advised Siggins of his discovery and asked if Siggins was interested in pursuing a federal investigation. Sigginsagreed to take over the case, and immediately began preparing a search warrant affidavit. In his affidavit, Siggins recounted the discovery by the Upgraders staff of the pornographic images, Grosenheider's bringing the computer back to Upgraders, and the call from Monks to Meaux. He did not mention Meaux's viewing of the images or his seizure of the computer. At approximately 4:30 p.m. that afternoon, Siggins applied for and received a warrant to search the computer from a United States Magistrate Judge.
7 After obtaining the warrant, Siggins secured the computer from Meaux and took it to Upgraders, where he informed Monks that he had a warrant for the computer and would return it to Upgraders once he had finished searching it. Siggins then took the computer back to his office and made a backup image of the computer's entire hard drive. He analyzed the image on one of the government's computers, and found that Grosenheider had subscribed to Forte Agent, an on-line service that enables subscribers to access various "newsgroups" on the Internet.
2 Grosenheider had subscribed to
fifteen newsgroups, thirteen of which featured images and messages concerning child *advertiser censored*.
3 Siggins found that from these newsgroups
Grosenheider had downloaded over 500 images of young females, ages ten to fourteen, engaged in various sexually explicit acts. Grosenheider had also established over 250 files, each of which contained at least one image of child *advertiser censored* and sometimes included textual commentary with the image. Siggins determined further that Grosenheider had viewed many of these images more than once because the "creation date" on the files sometimes differed from the "last access date", meaning that the file had been modified or viewed after being downloaded. Based on these findings, Siggins applied for and received another warrant to search Grosenheider's home in Austin.
8 On the following Monday, November 3, 1997, Siggins returned the computer to Upgraders in anticipation of a "controlled delivery." Grosenheider's wife picked up the computer from Upgraders that same day and took it back to their home. Federal agents followed Mrs. Grosenheider to the residence; upon her arrival, they executed the search warrant. The agents seized the computer, but did not find any additional child *advertiser censored* at the residence.
(MUCH more at link)
Note the ages: 10-14 yrs of age. GAG
