Former-state Rep. Keith Farnham pleads guilty to child porn

UPDATE: Keith Farnham now registered as sex offender

See Also: Ex-State Rep. Keith Farnham pleads guilty in child porn case

12-6-2014 Illinois:

Former state Rep. Keith Farnham faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison after pleading guilty Friday to online trading of thousands of images and videos of child pornography depicting victims as young as toddlers.

Federal prosecutors sought to take Farnham into custody after his guilty plea to a single count of distributing child porn. But U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang allowed him to remain confined at home on electronic monitors, citing serious health problems that include a terminal lung disease, bladder cancer and hepatitis.

Farnham, 67, must register Monday with federal authorities as a sex offender.

Farnham's attorney, Terry Ekl, said his client hopes to begin taking an experimental drug to treat his pulmonary fibrosis — a condition that causes lung tissue to scar — but still would need a lung transplant for any hope of long-term survival. He was scheduled to be sentenced March 19 and could face up to about 15 years in prison under federal guidelines.

"Without a lung transplant, it's likely he's going to die in the penitentiary," Elk told reporters in the courthouse lobby.

Farnham, an Elgin Democrat who resigned his seat in March days after federal agents seized computers from his state office and home, appeared in court with an oxygen tube hooked up to his nose. When the judge asked him what he did for a living, Farnham said quietly, "I was a state representative."

Ekl said he would seek the minimum five-year prison term for Farnham, a Navy veteran who ran an Elgin printing business before running for office in 2009.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Storino said that investigators found more than 2,750 images of child pornography on Farnham's computers as well as two graphic videos showing victims as young as 2 or 3.

According to Farnham's plea agreement, the pornography was found on computers and electronic storage devices that were seized from his state office, home and car. Authorities also linked a Yahoo email account used by Farnham to an online trading forum in which he chatted with other users about his sexual preferences, according to the charges.

"12 is about as old as i can handle," Farnham allegedly said in one online chat in November 2013, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in April. "i love them at 6 7 8."

In another chat, Farnham allegedly described in detail a sexual encounter he had with a 6-year-old girl, the complaint alleged.

Ekl said the encounter was fictional. While Farnham's "sickness" was disturbing, Ekl said, he "has never, never abused any child, never had any physical contact with a child."

As part of his home confinement, Farnham must to stay off the patio of his condominium because a young child lives nearby. Farnham's wife, Susan, also was ordered to keep her cellphone and computer password protected from Farnham, lock up her iPad and laptop when she's not home, and notify court officials if her husband tried to use any device that could potentially connect to the Internet. ..Source.. by Jason Meisner

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Pentagon to investigate hundreds of suspected child pornography fans in its ranks

9-17-2010 Washington DC:

In a reversal, the Pentagon says it will reopen hundreds of cases of alleged purchases of child pornography by Department of Defense employees that Pentagon officials previously declined to investigate, The Upshot has learned.

Earlier this month, The Upshot reported exclusively that in 2007, investigators for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service obtained a list of 264 military service members, civilian employees and contractors for the Department of Defense who had used credit cards or PayPal to purchase access to a child pornography website. But the DCIS, citing scarce resources, pursued only 52 of the names before closing the project -- known as Project Flicker -- in 2008. Since no further public information on the cases was made available, it appears that the other people on the list of suspected child-pornography patrons were able to continue their careers without any interruption that stemmed from the investigation.

But today, the Pentagon official in charge of DCIS told The Upshot that he has ordered the remaining cases reopened. "I have tasked Defense Criminal Investigative Service representatives with reviewing each and every Project Flicker and related referral DCIS received so as to ensure action was taken regarding these allegations involving employees of the Department of Defense," Deputy Inspector General for Investigations James Burch said in the statement Wednesday.

Burch announced his decision to revisit the cases, which had been abandoned for two years, in response to inquiries from The Upshot.

Project Flicker began in 2006 as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau investigation targeting overseas processing of payments for online subscriptions to child pornography websites. In the course of the inquiry, ICE agents obtained a list of names and account information for more than 5,000 U.S. residents who had purchased subscriptions to such sites using their credit cards or PayPal accounts. Some of them used .mil e-mail addresses, or physical addresses on or near military installations, so in 2007 ICE handed the list to DCIS agents to identify and investigate any military members.

DCIS came up with 264 active-duty and reserve military members, civilian employees and contractors on the list, including more than 70 with security clearances and 22 with Top Secret clearances. Among them were a contractor for the super-secretive National Security Agency, a staffer in Defense Secretary Robert Gates' office, and a program manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But DCIS only opened investigations into 52 of the names, according to investigative documents obtained by The Upshot under the Freedom of Information Act, and only 10 were ever charged. According to the documents, the project was closed in 2008 "due to the need to focus more resources on other DCIS investigative priorities." DCIS is primarily concerned with contractor fraud, and generally doesn't pursue child pornography cases.

A source familiar with the investigations confirmed to The Upshot earlier this month that DCIS simply "didn't have the resources to run with it," so the agency picked the most sensitive cases -- individuals with Top Secret clearances, or people who worked at sensitive military installations -- and ignored the rest. According to the documents, there no systematic effort to alert the individual military service branches' criminal investigative commands, or even superiors or commanding officers, to the presence of hundreds of alleged child pornography patrons in the Defense Department. (The Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which investigates criminal matters for the Air Force, says it received no referrals from DCIS, but did launch three investigations based on names received from ICE. The Army's Criminal Investigative Division says it doesn't know how many, if any, names DCIS referred. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service did not respond to inquiries.)

Based on the documents released via FOIA, it is impossible for DCIS to have pursued every purchaser with a security clearance -- 76 of the names had Secret clearances or higher, and only 52 were investigated. Kenneth deGraffenreid, one of the nation's top former counterintelligence officials, told The Upshot last week that the Pentagon's failure to run down at the very least every name with a clearance was "absurd," and that foreign intelligence services are actively seeking people who have both access to America's secrets and terrible secrets of their own that make them vulnerable to blackmail.

In his statement, Burch said that even if criminal charges were not pursued against the remaining names on the list, DCIS would take steps to alert their superiors for administrative action. Here's the full statement:

I have tasked Defense Criminal Investigative Service representatives with reviewing each and every Project Flicker and related referral DCIS received so as to ensure action was taken regarding these allegations involving employees of the Department of Defense. If circumstances dictate, additional appropriate steps will be taken to ensure allegations involving DoD employees are thoroughly explored. In situations whereby criminal charges will not be pursued, relevant information will be referred to the leadership of appropriate DoD organizations for administrative action deemed appropriate.

The Boston Globe first reported the existence of Project Flicker in July; The Upshot was the first to report the existence of hundreds of names the Pentagon had declined to investigate. ..Source.. John Cook

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MI- Officer facing felony charges

8-26-2008 Michigan:

Allegedly, illegally accessed jail computer

ESCANABA - A former corrections officer at the Delta County Jail has been charged with illegally accessing jail computers and possession of child pornography, according to Delta County District Court records.

William James Johnson, 33, of 127 Michigan Ave., Gladstone, was arrested two weeks ago on three felony counts of unauthorized access to computers and a fourth felony count of possession of child sexually abusive material, according to court records.

The computer incidents occurred from 2004-07 at the Delta County Jail and carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The fourth count (possession of child sexually abusive material) relates to an incident in December 2007 at his home and carries a maximum punishment of four years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Following authorization of a warrant for his arrest, Johnson turned himself in at the Michigan State Police post in Gladstone on Aug. 13. He posted a $500 bond. On Aug. 18, he waived his 14-day right to a preliminary examination. A preliminary hearing has not been scheduled in district court yet, said court officials.

According to State Police Det. Sgt. Greg Cunningham from the Gladstone Post, the illegal use of the jail computers was discovered during an update of the county computer system in December.

It was found that spyware had been installed on the computers, allowing each keystroke to be recorded, he said. Further investigation revealed Johnson had allegedly installed the spyware allowing access to booking information, employee passwords, Internet use, and other information.

Investigators initiated a search warrant to determine if department information was transferred to Johnson's home computer, Cunningham said. It was during this computer forensic examination when officials discovered the child pornography, he explained.

Cunningham said there was no loss of department information and there was no security breached.

-I wonder what their definition of "security breach" is?

Johnson was hired as a corrections officer at the county jail on Oct. 1, 1998. After the initial investigation into the case, he was suspended with pay from his job. Following further investigation revealing child pornography on his home computer, Johnson was fired from his position in January.

The specific charges against Johnson are:

Count 1 - Unauthorized access to computers in the front office computer for dispatch 1.

Count 2 - Unauthorized access to computers in the lower booking computer.

Count 3 - Unauthorized access to computers in the front office computer for dispatch 2.

Count 3 - Possession of child sexually abusive material.

According to court records, the investigation includes more than 100 pages of computer examination materials. ..News Source.. by Jenny Lancour

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