PA- Man picks prison over freedom

8-24-2008 Pennsylvania:

Defendant in child-pornography case volunteers to return to cell

A Girard Township couple volunteered to house a former Erie medical student while he awaited federal trial on child-pornography charges.

But neither the couple nor the defendant, Jeremy Noyes, were prepared for the storm of controversy surrounding the Noyes case -- stemming largely from writings in which, the FBI said, Noyes plotted to breed a colony of child sex slaves.

Noyes volunteered to return to the Erie County Prison late Friday after the friends he was staying with, 60-year-old Jerome Lynch and his wife, Barbara, received threats, Noyes' lawyer, Thomas Patton, said Saturday. Patton said he did not know the nature of the threats or whether police were investigating them.

"They indicated they were no longer in a position" to house Noyes, said Patton, an assistant federal public defender. Noyes did not want to place his friends in danger, Patton said.

Patton informed Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Paradise Baxter of Noyes' decision Friday, and she issued a warrant for Noyes' arrest.

Agents from the U.S. Marshals Service then went to where Noyes, 30, was staying on Gudgeonville Road in rural Girard Township and took him into custody, Patton said. He was incarcerated late Friday night, the Erie County Prison said.

Patton said Noyes' return to prison did not mean the defense was conceding that Noyes should be held in prison pending trial. Patton said the defense would be looking for other housing options for Noyes.

Baxter had freed Noyes on Thursday after finding the government had not presented enough evidence to prove that Noyes was a danger to the community. Noyes had been in prison since his arrest on the child-pornography charges on Monday. Baxter prohibited him from using a computer during his release.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian Trabold argued on Thursday that whether Noyes intended to carry out the sex-slave plot described in his computer records did not matter. He said the writings gave Baxter a window into Noyes' mind-set.

"I am extremely pleased that Mr. Noyes has been detained," Trabold said Saturday.

On Thursday, Trabold told Baxter in court, "You have a laundry list of chats that reveal his innermost thoughts, and they unquestionably center around the rape, torture, mutilation and humiliation of little kids over an extended period of time."

On Friday, Trabold appealed Baxter's decision to release Noyes. U.S. District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin is expected to rule on that appeal.

Patton maintained on Thursday that the FBI had uncovered no evidence that Noyes' plot was real or fantasy. He said the only evidence obtained so far indicated that the case was "unfortunately, a run-of-the-mill child-pornography-case."

Jerome Lynch, Noyes' friend in Girard, testified on Thursday that he and his wife did not approve of the material found in Noyes' possession. However, Lynch said they had known him for five years and had never experienced problems with him.

The FBI arrested Noyes at his residence in the 700 block of Brown Avenue in Erie on Monday. Special Agent Thomas Brenneis said he found exchanges of child pornography in Noyes' e-mail account.

Noyes was a student at the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine at the time of his arrest. The school has since dismissed him.

The FBI investigated Noyes after a fellow LECOM student, who sought Noyes out on a hardcore bondage Web site, www.collar me.com, contacted them using a pseudonym. The woman, Noyes' former girlfriend, told the FBI Noyes was planning to bring a New Zealand woman and her 4-year-old daughter to the United States so that Noyes could begin breeding a colony of sex slaves on a farm or an island.

At Thursday's hearing, Brenneis said agents found writings on Noyes' laptop that praised Hitler and the notion of a super race. In his musings about his family of sex slaves, the writer spoke of obtaining superior DNA from Germany and Sweden. He also repeatedly talked of violent methods to discipline the children in the colony, including throwing them in a pit for disobedience, and methods of sexualizing infants and toddlers by exposing them to pornography and sexual abuse.

Testimony also has indicated that Noyes was stockpiling silver and owned vacant land in New Hampshire. ..News Source.. by LISA THOMPSON