VT- Attorney challenges pornography probe

4-15-2009 Vermont:

BRATTLEBORO – The attorney for former Bellows Falls village trustee Stewart Read on Tuesday tried to undercut the credibility of law enforcement officials who investigated suspicions that Read still had child pornography in his possession, a violation of his earlier suspended sentence on child pornography charges.

Read, 54, of Bellows Falls, was charged with two counts of violating conditions of his probation in 2007 after his probation officer said she believed he had answered deceitfully on a polygraph test when asked about child pornography.

Read was arrested in April 2005 and convicted in 2006 of possession of child pornography and was given a suspended sentence.

Read had been asked if he had any child pornography in his possession, and the test showed he wasn't telling the truth, according to Nick Merrill, a state community correctional officer.

Read's attorney, Jesse Corum of Brattleboro, in pre-trial motions, has challenged the search of Read's Bellows Falls home and his mill on Bridge Street where he stores items. He has challenged Read's comments to probation officers, in which he admitted he may have had materials that could be interpreted as child pornography as part of his assignment by his therapist to write his "sexual autobiography" as part of his sex offender treatment.

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Read turned over a book to the probation officers at the Bridge Street mill, "What's Happening to My Body Book for Boys."

As a condition of Read's 24-month suspended sentence on misdemeanor charges, Read was prohibited from having any kind of pornography.

Corum asked Merrill if it would be illegal for him to have such a book, but Windham County Deputy State's Attorney David Gartenstein objected, noting it was Read who wasn't supposed to have such things in his possession.

Merrill said that Read's office was very cluttered with books, magazines, papers and tapes and videotapes.

If Read is found in violation of his earlier suspended sentence, there is a possibility he will serve time in jail.

The Tuesday afternoon hearing focused on what Merrill and Bellows Falls Police Department officer Jennifer Carroll remembered about the November 2007 incident, and the original April 2005 search of Read's home and mill property.

Judge Karen Carroll, (no relation to the police officer) continued the hearing to a future date because Read's main probation officer, Mary Cataldi, is on medical leave from her job.

Carroll said the 2005 search turned up 65 bankers' boxes of child pornographic material. Most of that material was found in the mill property on Bridge Street that Read owned.

Merrill, who was one of three probation officers involved in the 2007 search of Read's home and mill, said Read read and signed a consent form agreeing to the search of his home. However, Read had earlier agreed to searches of his home by probation officers as a condition of his suspended sentence.

The three probation officers turned up a box full of suspected pornographic material in 2007, including four brochures that showed children superimposed on men engaged in sexual activities.

The four brochures, which advertised various pornographic videos and movies, were found in a box underneath Read's desk in his cluttered third-story office, Merrill said.

Read's attorneys have claimed that the brochures were leftover from the 2005 case and that police left the pornographic materials behind. Corum has also raised questions about whether the brochures are actually pornographic and questioned whether the children in the photos are actually children between the ages of 10 and 14.

Read was defeated in his bid for re-election shortly after his 2005 arrest and he recently resigned his post as Bellows Falls village auditor. He and his wife Dorothy run a bed-and-breakfast inn at their home in Bellows Falls. ..News Source.. by Susan Smallheer STAFF WRITER