State v. Conant

2014 Ohio 1739
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 23, 2014
Docket13CA55
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 2014 Ohio 1739 (State v. Conant) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Conant, 2014 Ohio 1739 (Ohio Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

[Cite as State v. Conant, 2014-Ohio-1739.]

COURT OF APPEALS RICHLAND COUNTY, OHIO FIFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

JUDGES: STATE OF OHIO : Hon. W. Scott Gwin, P.J. : Hon. John W. Wise, J. Plaintiff-Appellee : Hon. Patricia A. Delaney, J. : -vs- : : Case No. 13CA55 PAUL MICHAEL CONANT : : Defendant-Appellant : OPINION

CHARACTER OF PROCEEDING: Criminal appeal from the Richland County Court of Common Pleas, Case No. 2012- CR-851

JUDGMENT: Affirmed

DATE OF JUDGMENT ENTRY: April 23, 2014

APPEARANCES:

For Plaintiff-Appellee For Defendant-Appellant

JAMES J. MAYER, JR. RANDALL FRY PROSECUTING ATTORNEY 10 West Newlon Place JILL COCHRAN Mansfield, OH 44902 38 South Park Street Mansfield, OH 44902 [Cite as State v. Conant, 2014-Ohio-1739.]

Gwin, P.J.

{¶1} Appellant Paul Conant [“Conant”] appeals his convictions and sentences

for three counts of Pandering Sexually Oriented Matter Involving a Minor, in violation of

R.C. § 2907.322(A)(5), felonies of the fourth degree, and fifteen counts of Pandering

Obscenity Involving a Minor in violation of R.C. § 2907.321(A)(5), felonies of the fourth

degree after a jury trial in the Richland County Court of Common Pleas.

Facts and Procedural History

{¶2} On October 6, 2011, Captain Eric Bosko of the Richland County Sherriff’s

Department received a letter and report from the Internet Crimes Against Children

(“ICAC”) agency in Cuyahoga County indicating that they had information that child

pornography had been downloaded at an IP address located in Richland County. A

search warrant was obtained based on the information provided by ICAC for the

residence associated with the IP address in question, 1536 Pear Place, Mansfield,

Ohio. The search warrant was executed on October 7, 2011. A computer was removed

from the basement of the home. A subsequent search of the computer at the Bureau of

Criminal Investigation [“BCI”] located four videos of potential child pornography, 186

images of potential child pornography, and 494 images of young females modeling

clothing.

{¶3} As a result of the investigation started by ICAC, Conant was indicted on

December 7, 2012 on three counts of Pandering Sexually Oriented Matter Involving a

Minor, and fifteen counts of Pandering Obscenity Involving a Minor.

{¶4} During Conant’s jury trial, Captain Bosko testified that the owner of 1536

Pear Place, Mansfield, Ohio was David Conant, Jr., the eighty-seven year old father of Richland County, Case No. 13CA55 3

appellant. David Conant, III is the brother of appellant. Appellant’s father was present

when the warrant to search the home was executed.

{¶5} Captain Bosko further testified there were two computer areas in the

home, one in the kitchen and one in the basement. Appellant’s father told the officer’s

conducting the search that the computer in the kitchen belonged to him and he was the

sole user of that computer. The other computer set-up was down in the basement.

Captain Bosko testified that appellant’s father stated that the computer in the basement

belonged to appellant. Located near the basement computer were several pieces of

mail addressed to appellant, as well as other items that were identified by David

Conant, Jr. as belonging to appellant.

{¶6} The computers were then sent to BCI where they were examined by

Natasha Branham, a computer forensic specialist. Appellant's computer, identified as

Evidence Item 1 was found to have three hard drives located within the generic

computer tower. “Hard Disk One” had one terabyte [“1TB’] of memory and was running

Windows 7 Home Premium operating system. Programs called Frostwire and/or

Limewire were loaded onto this computer. These programs are used for peer-to-peer

sharing. Ms. Branham offered background information on peer-to peer-file sharing and

computer data storage. During her testimony, Ms. Branham explained that when

someone uses the Limewire or Frostwire program, they are presented with a search

box. The user then types a search term in the box and the program searches the files of

other users for these search term or terms. Any files with names containing those

search terms then appear in a list. The user may then select files from the list by either

selecting individual files or selecting a range of files. The user is then able to click the Richland County, Case No. 13CA55 4

download button to begin the download process. These types of programs allow a user

to store images in a file that can be accessed by the user from a remote location or by

other users of the same program.

{¶7} This particular drive was found to be password protected with multiple

possible combinations returned when attempts were made to crack the password. The

registered owner of the Windows 7 Home Premium software was “Mikie.” The operating

system was set to a default administrator. Located on this particular drive were four

videos of potential child pornography and eighty-two images of potential child

pornography. The file names of the four videos included words like “PTHC,” “pedo,”

“Lolita,” and “kiddie hunt.” Two of the videos were located within Frostwire/Limewire

folder. The photographs were not located within the Frostwire/Limewire folder. They

were located in “thumb [cache] DV file,” indicating that the images had been viewed

through Windows Explorer. The others were located in an “orphan folder.” All of the

counts in the complaint came from the images and videos located within Hard Drive

One.

{¶8} “Hard Drive Two” was a 250-gigabyte Seagate hard drive. The operating

system was Windows XP Professional. Paul M. Conant was the registered owner of the

Windows XP software. The administrator account on this hard drive had been changed

to a nickname of “Mikie” and full name of Mike Conant. “Hard Drive Three” was also a

250-gigabyte hard drive. It did not contain an operating system and was used simply for

storage. Located on Hard Drive Three were 104 images of potential child pornography

and 494 images of young females modeling clothing in various stages of undress but

not nude. Richland County, Case No. 13CA55 5

{¶9} Jason Howell, an investigator from ICAC testified regarding his

investigation that led to the issuance of the search warrant. Howell testified that one of

his reports indicated that appellant's computer was on and ten files of suspected child

pornography were located within the sharing file between February 17, 2011 and April

6, 2011. He could not tell when the items were downloaded.

{¶10} Melissa Donathan, an acquaintance of appellant, testified that she met

appellant in April of 2012. During this time, Ms. Donathan was living with her mother,

Connie Donathan. Connie Donathan was friends with appellant through work. Appellant

was also friends with Connie's landlord and did handyman work for him on occasion.

When Connie's garage wall collapsed, appellant came over to help fix it, which is how

Ms. Donathan became acquainted with the appellant.

{¶11} One day, while appellant was working on tearing down the garage for

Connie Donathan, a third party asked appellant if he had been informed whether the

police found anything as a result of the search warrant that had been executed the

previous October at appellant’s home. Appellant's response was that there was nothing

incriminating for the raid to even have been conducted.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Mattocks
2020 Ohio 3858 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 2020)
State v. Fielding
2014 Ohio 3105 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 2014)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2014 Ohio 1739, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-conant-ohioctapp-2014.