Midshipman 1st Class Michael Pollard: 5 years in child porn case

[CommunityEditor]

A hearing involving a Naval Academy senior accused of possessing child pornography got underway Monday at the Washington Navy Yard.

Midshipman 1st Class Michael Pollard faces several charges at the Article 32 hearing, including:

* Attempt to distribute child pornography.

* Conduct unbecoming an officer by impeding an investigation, by deleting child pornography.

* Conduct unbecoming an officer by impeding an investigation, by installing a new operating system on his computer to erase information.

* Conduct unbecoming an officer by making a false official statement to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

* Conduct unbecoming an officer by possessing pornography.

* Four counts of violating Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, known as the general article, by knowingly possessing and receiving more than 1,000 pornographic images and video files on two laptops and one external hard drive.

Prosecutors said the images Pollard allegedly collected were of pre-pubescent boys.

One of Pollard’s roommates testified that he accidentally found child pornography on Pollard’s government-issued laptop. Midshipman 1st Class Mikoto Yoshida said Monday that he used Pollard’s computer to watch a television show and clicked on something called “Boy Party.”

The Article 32 — the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing — was expected to continue through Monday.

The hearing’s presiding officer will then recommend to Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler whether the case should go to court-martial.

Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...cle32_040708w/

[CommunityEditor]

Update: Mid had child porn, roommate testifies (http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...aring_040808w/)


The Navy’s lead witness in its case against a Naval Academy student accused of storing more than 1,000 pornographic images of children on two computers testified Monday that he discovered the files when he logged onto his roommate’s computer to watch a television show.

Midshipman 1st Class Mikoto Yoshida was the first of several witnesses at the Article 32 hearing of Midshipman 1st Class Michael Pollard, who is charged with one count of possessing child pornography, four counts of conduct unbecoming an officer, and four lesser, related counts under the UCMJ’s general article.

Yoshida said he used Pollard’s computer during a break between classes in February 2006 because his own computer was slow. He said he became suspicious after seeing a video file titled “Boy Party”; when he clicked on it, he saw “two naked adolescent boys moving toward each other.” Elsewhere on the computer, he said, found other child pornography and fictional accounts of sexual encounters between three characters, all young boys and teens, on the television show “Malcolm in the Middle.”

Yoshida, who shared a six-person suite in the academy dormitory with Pollard, said he then showed the pornographic images to two other roommates. After the group conferred about what they should do, Yoshida went to his class officer to report what he had found, and Pollard’s laptop was seized by Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents later that day.

An agent from a private forensics laboratory in Maryland testified that he found evidence of several hundred pornographic images of “prepubescent boys” on the computer, and on another computer that agents later took from his mother’s Apopka, Fla., home.

Yoshida said he had no suspicions that Pollard had saved any type of pornography on his computer before his discovery and added that his roommates often used each other’s computers to play practical jokes, watch movies and print papers.

The Article 32 hearing, which is similar to a grand jury proceeding, concluded late Monday afternoon, after investigating officer Cmdr. Michael Holifield rejected a request by civilian defense lawyer Larry Burch to hold the hearing open for 10 days so that former Naval Academy superintendent and retired Vice Adm. Rodney Rempt could be located.

Burch said he wanted to question Rempt, who was superintendent when the investigation was launched, about oral authorization Rempt gave a staff officer to have Pollard’s computer seized — normally such authorizations are given in writing, a Naval Academy staff officer testified.

Holifield will recommend to the case’s convening authority, Naval Academy superintendent Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler, whether Pollard should be court-martialed for any or all of the charges, although Fowler will not be bound by Holifield’s recommendation.

Burch repeatedly questioned how prosecutors could tie the pornography found on Pollard’s computer directly to Pollard. He said some of the charges were excessive, noting that Pollard was charged with transferring pornography after leaving a computer at his mother’s house in Florida.

“The idea that he was attempting to transfer child pornography to his mother defies common sense,” he said.

Pollard did not testify at the hearing at the Washington Navy Yard courtroom, but conferred with Burch several times during the hearing, apparently offering information about several software file-sharing programs he is alleged to have used.

Naval Academy officials have declined to describe Pollard’s status at the academy, but a Naval Academy staff officer testified that he has been removed from his class; midshipmen normally remain attached to a class from plebe summers until graduation.

Pollard is charged with:

* Attempt to distribute child pornography.

* Conduct unbecoming an officer by impeding an investigation, by deleting child pornography.

* Conduct unbecoming an officer by impeding an investigation, by installing a new operating system on his computer to erase information.

* Conduct unbecoming an officer by making a false official statement to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

* Conduct unbecoming an officer by possessing pornography.

* Four counts of violating Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, known as the general article, by knowingly possessing and receiving more than 1,000 pornographic images and video files on two laptops and one external hard drive.

Holifield asked witnesses about their availability during the next three months, saying a court martial could be scheduled in that timeframe if Fowler decides to go forward with the case.

Sure, I understand that it's child porn and that is horrible. But why the hell would you click on some file called Boy Party?

Curiosity?

[CommunityEditor]

The court-martial of a Naval Academy student accused of storing child pornography on his personal computer has been postponed until next month, an academy spokeswoman said Monday.

Midshipman 1st Class Michael Pollard is charged with receipt, possession and attempted distribution of child pornography stored electronically on computer equipment.

Academy spokeswoman Judy Campbell said the opening of Pollard’s trial, which was to have begun Tuesday, has been moved to Aug. 5 at the request of his defense attorney.

At Pollard’s April 28 Article 32 hearing, then Midshipman 1st Class Mikoto Yoshida testified that he found a video file titled “Boy Party”, that featured “two naked, adolescent boys moving toward each other” and fan fiction accounts of sexual encounters between three of the brothers on the television show “Malcolm in the Middle” on Pollard’s computer when he logged on to watch a television show during a class break.

Yoshida, who shared a suite with Pollard and three other midshipmen, testified that he consulted with two of the roommates before going to his class officer to report what he had found.

Pollard’s computer was seized later that day.


Article: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/0...ldporn_070708/

[CommunityEditor]

A Naval Academy senior who had dreamed of flying Navy jets since he was a child was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison for downloading child pornography onto two computers, despite the testimony of a nationally renowned pedophilia expert that he was unlikely to ever have physically harmed any children and could have been rehabilitated without jail time.

Midshipman 1st Class Michael Pollard, clad in his dress whites for perhaps the last time, apologized to the Naval Academy, to his father, a retired Navy master chief, and to his mother before he was taken into custody by Navy masters-at-arms.

Pollard, 23, began serving his sentence immediately.

“This seems to be a very decent young man who has led a good life, who happens to be afflicted by a sexual disorder,” Fred Berlin, a clinical psychologist and and founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic told trial judge Capt. Bruce MacKenzie. “The power of a biologically based drive is such that good people trying their best can fail despite their best efforts.”

Berlin said a forensics study of nearly five years of Internet activity on Pollard’s computers and a background check convinced him that Pollard suffered from “homosexual pedophilia confined to voyeurism” and that there was little risk that he would have ever tried to make contact with any children even without treatment.

“This appears for him an end in and of itself and is not directed to any other activity. There is no evidence that he ever approached or expressed interest in a child.”

Berlin said a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine study found that medication, group therapy and behavior modification had proven successful in treating more than 90 percent of people convicted of sex crimes.

But MacKenzie appeared moved by neither Berlin’s testimony nor by civilian defense lawyer Larry Burch’s request that he be sentenced to just one year in the brig. Instead, he ordered Pollard to prison for six years and ruled that he should forfeit all pay and allowances and to be dismissed from the Navy.

Under a plea agreement negotiated before the hearing, one year of that sentence will be suspended. The sentence must now be approved by the convening authority, Naval Academy superintendent Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler. Fowler can leave the sentence as it is or lower it, but he cannot increase it.

The sentence capped an emotional day of testimony in which lead prosecutor Lt. Justin Henderson was visibly disgusted as he spoke of more than 1,000 images and files of child pornography Pollard admitted downloading since he was a student at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, R.I., five years ago. One of those files, Henderson said, was titled “Boy Party” and featured three 10 year-old boys having sex with each other; other files included sexually explicit pictures of boys “as young as 3.”

Those boys, Henderson said, were made “sex slaves” for life, by the desires and actions of people like Pollard.

Pollard testified that he had been addicted to child pornography since he was a boy and had tried many times to quit. He said he was deeply embarrassed by his desires and was afraid to seek help from the Naval Academy psychologist, but planned to get private counseling when he graduated and was able to afford it.

His mother, Marjorie Henderson, cried as she told of her own struggle with alcoholism and of a conversation she recently had with Pollard.

“He said to me one day, “How could a woman ever love me or want to have kids with me? How could my friends still want to be my friend?’ ”

“You can’t go to your parents with this,” Burch said. “You can’t to the psychologist at the Naval Academy with this. They don’t understand this. He doesn’t even understand this.”

Pollard’s case began when a roommate logged onto his laptop computer to watch a television show during a class break and found the Boy Party video file and a fan fiction story of a sexual encounter between the three brothers on the television show “Malcolm in the Middle.”

The roommate reported Pollard to his class officer. Pollard’s computer was seized, and several months later, he was taken to court-martial.


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...llard_080608w/

[Your_Name_Here]

I think I know what Inmate Pollard's new name is gonna be: CHESTER. I hope for his sake that he can keep his back to the wall at all times.