United States v. Meeks

290 F. App'x 896
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 28, 2008
Docket07-3063
StatusUnpublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 290 F. App'x 896 (United States v. Meeks) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Meeks, 290 F. App'x 896 (6th Cir. 2008).

Opinion

*897 JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge.

Pursuant to a plea agreement, defendant-appellant Michael W. Meeks pled guilty to one count of receiving and distributing child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. Prior to his trial, the district court denied his motion to suppress. The district court sentenced Meeks to 80 months incarceration, followed by 10 years of supervised release with standard and special conditions. He appeals the denial of his motion to suppress, the conditions of his supervised release, and the length of his sentence as exceeding a “mandatory sentence.” For the following reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I.

In November 2002, a complainant in Denmark reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (“FBI”) internet website that the Yahoo! group Muels — Plays-chooool was being used to transmit child pornography. The complainant runs an electronic mail message (“e-mail”) service and discovered the group while servicing the account of a client who sent and received e-mails from the group. The complainant voluntarily provided the FBI with three compact discs that contained more than three thousand e-mail messages from the client’s account, software to view the emails and associated attachments, and instructions on how to install the software. The FBI conducted an investigation. It determined “that the name of the group had changed more than once during the existence of the group, but that the ListID remained constant.” 1 For example, the group name Muels — Playschooool had been changed to Muels — Playdays, but the ListID remained 4453502.

The FBI was not able to access the group directly because membership in the group was by invitation only. It obtained a search warrant to Yahoo!, Inc., and shortly after it received the results, Yahoo shut down the group. The FBI reviewed the evidence to identify persons in the United States who transmitted child pornography. It obtained registration information for some members of the group and photographs and e-mails that had been posted in the group.

One of the identified group members used the e-mail address ledbootz75@ yahoo.com. On October 26, 2002, four separate e-mails, each entitled “Our Girl Kate,” were sent to the group by ledbootz75@ yahoo.com. Each e-mail contained three images of a prepubescent female wearing an oversized fishnet blouse which exposed her lower body. Each image also was titled, “Russian Lolitas. Professional Series.” Each image listed an internet address, russianlolitas.net.

On November 18, 2002, ledbootz75@ yahoo.com sent the group three additional e-mail messages. One e-mail contained three images of a prepubescent female wearing an oversized shirt and underwear that was loose enough to reveal her chest and genital areas. Each of the other two e-mails contained three images of a prepubescent female wearing oversized underwear; the female in each image was lying on her side on a blanket or lying or sitting on a blanket with her legs opened. Each of these nine images was titled “GENJA.”

The FBI tracked the internet protocol(“IP”)address 2 used by ledbootz75@ *898 yahoo.com. Level 3 Communications, a company that purchases blocks of IP addresses and resells them to other companies that allocate individual IP addresses to individual clients, leased the IP address to SBC Global. SBC Global, an internet service provider, assigned the IP address to Dora A. Meeks, who had a username hootbomb@sbcglobal.net. Hootbomb@ sbcglobal.net accessed the internet, logged into the ledbootz75@yahoo.com account, and sent images of child pornography interstate through Yahoo! services in Santa Clara, California. SBC identified the owner of the hootbomb account as Dora A. Meeks, 65934 Endley Road, Cambridge, Ohio 43725 (“Endley residence”), telephone number (216) 251-6824, with an enrollment date of September 10, 2002. The person who created the ledbootz75@yahoo. com e-mail account identified himself as Jimmy Gent, Cleveland, Ohio 44102, a male carpenter born on May 19, 1979, information that was not verified prior to creation of the account. The FBI was unable to locate a Jimmy Gent with that date of birth.

After reviewing the images and an attached affidavit, Judge James L. Graham issued a search warrant for Dora Meeks’s residence. On June 11, 2003, the FBI executed the search warrant and interviewed Dora Meeks. The FBI confirmed that Dora Meeks paid for the internet service but learned that it was provided to her other residence, 10605 Manoa Avenue, Brooklyn, Ohio 44144, (“Manoa residence”) where her son Michael Meeks resided. The FBI confirmed that the internet account at the Manoa residence was still active.

Also on June 11, 2003, the FBI conducted surveillance on the Manoa residence and confirmed that Michael Meeks resided there. 3 On that same date, Magistrate Judge Jack B. Streepy issued a search warrant for computer equipment at the Manoa residence. The FBI executed the search warrant on the Manoa residence on June 11, 2003. In a basement bedroom in the residence that contained some of Michael Meeks’s personal documents, agents found a computer monitor, printer, scanner, and keyboard. Agents did not find a central processing unit (“CPU”) containing a hard drive. The answering machine contained several messages from a female asking Michael Meeks to answer the telephone because she was worried about him.

One item seized during the search was a notebook of five-by-eight-inch index cards containing detailed notes of e-mail addresses, passwords, and names of albums containing pictures and movies. The names of the directories and files included “Sweet Lolita Sisters,” “4yr-bj,” “Reel Kiddy Mov — Vicky—Sucking,” “dad eats tiny,” and “4 yo cummouth.” The notebook referenced a series of images it identified as “Genja.” It contained references to the ledbootz75@yahoo.com email account and to other e-mail addresses containing ledbootz followed by different numbers along with passwords to these other e-mail accounts. The notebook also referred to eleven accounts on an internet site, PhotoIsland.com, a website that provides free online photography storage for up to ten megabytes of storage space per account. FBI Special Agent Brian Vig-neaux accessed the accounts and changed the passwords in order to secure the evidence before obtaining a search warrant— but he did not conduct a search of the contents of the accounts.

Fifteen floppy discs were seized from the bedroom cabinet. Two discs contained a series of 32 pictures entitled “Gege” that appeared to be sexually explicit images of *899 a young girl. The seized notebook contained a reference to “Gege” as a series associated with one of Meeks’s e-mail addresses.

The seized notebook also contained references to e-mail addresses and passwords where Meeks stored pictures and movies, including Yahoo! accounts MilesBeyond— 440 and Milesbeyond — led. Although he did not conduct a search, Vigneaux accessed the accounts and changed the passwords in order to secure the evidence. The seized notebook also listed multiple Yahoo! e-mail addresses and accounts that did not specify whether they were Yahoo! accounts.

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Bluebook (online)
290 F. App'x 896, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-meeks-ca6-2008.