United States v. Perrine

518 F.3d 1196, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 5251, 2008 WL 638687
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedMarch 11, 2008
Docket06-3336
StatusPublished
Cited by195 cases

This text of 518 F.3d 1196 (United States v. Perrine) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth 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. Perrine, 518 F.3d 1196, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 5251, 2008 WL 638687 (10th Cir. 2008).

Opinion

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge.

Defendant and appellant Steven C. Per-rine appeals the denial of his motion to suppress evidence following his conviction by a jury on three counts relating to the distribution, receipt and/or possession of child pornography, one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and two counts of criminal forfeiture. He also appeals the denial of his motion to dismiss the case against him, on the ground that governmental authorities engaged in outrageous conduct. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

On September 2, 2005, James Vanland-ingham reported to local police that, while in a Yahoo! chat room and while using the screen name “danaUiotlips05,” he began chatting with a person with the screen name “stevedragonslayer.” “stevedragon-slayer” invited Vanlandingham/“danaJiot-lips05” to watch a web cam video depicting two nude six-to-nine-year-old girls. While waiting for the police to arrive, Vanland-ingham stayed on the line with “stevedra-gonslayer” and continued to chat. Van-landingham asked if “stevedragonslayer” had any more videos, to which “stevedra-gonslayer” replied he did not know what might offend “dana_hotlips05.” After Vanlandingham informed “stevedragon-slayer” that he liked “the young hard stuff,” “stevedragonslayer” played several videos depicting young girls in various explicit sexual acts.

“stevedragonslayer” stopped sending video clips to “danaUiotlips05” prior to the arrival of police officers at Vanlanding-ham’s house, but Vanlandingham was able to preserve a copy of the chat room conversation. One of the Pennsylvania law enforcement authorities interviewed Van-landingham and viewed the saved chat room conversation.

Based upon Vanlandingham’s account of these events, Pennsylvania law enforcement personnel obtained a disclosure order dated October 14, 2005, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) and 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 5743(d), 1 directing Yahoo! to provide the subscriber information for the screen name “stevedragonslayer.” Yahoofs records indicated that “stevedragonslayer” logged on to the Yahoo! website from the IP address 68.103.177.146 on October 9, 2005, October 22, 2005, October 29, 2005, October 30, 2005, November 1, 2005, and November 6, 2005. 2

Further investigation revealed that this IP address was maintained by Cox Communications, Inc. Pennsylvania authorities obtained another disclosure order requiring Cox to provide the subscriber information for that IP address. Cox reported that the Yahoo! logins from this particular IP address at the times reported by Ya- *1200 boo! were associated with an account belonging to Steve Perrine, 11944 Rolling Hills Court, Wichita, Kansas.

Pennsylvania authorities then contacted Kansas authorities, who discovered that Steve Perrine had a prior state conviction for sexual exploitation of a child, for which he was still on probation. Wichita police obtained a search warrant for Perrine’s house, which was executed on December 22, 2005. In addition to seizing Perrine’s computer, the police also found firearms and drug paraphernalia. They accordingly amended the search warrant to authorize seizure of those items as well. A forensic examination of Perrine’s computer revealed thousands of images of child pornography.

On February 7, 2006, Perrine was charged in a superceding indictment with one count of distributing child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2); one count of receiving child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2); one count of possessing child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B); one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2); and two counts of forfeiture. Among other motions, Per-rine filed a motion to suppress and a motion to dismiss based upon outrageous government conduct.

The district court held a motions hearing, at which Perrine testified that he was “stevedragonslayer.” Perrine further testified that he had enábled peer-to-peer file sharing on his computer, thereby giving anyone with internet access and certain software the ability to gain entrance to certain files on his computer. After subsequent briefing, the district court denied Perrine’s motions.

The case proceeded to a jury trial. A Wichita Police Department Computer Forensics detective, Detective Stone, testified that he found in excess of 16,000 images of child pornography on Perrine’s computer. Detective Stone also found Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file sharing program, installed on Perrine’s computer. Stone further testified that Kazaa is a program which allows individual users like Perrine to identify folders that are available to share with others, search other computers with Kazaa for specific topics, and download files from other computers, while allowing other computers to download files from Perrine’s computer. 3

Additionally, Annie Cheung, the senior compliance paralegal at Yahoo!, testified that Yahoo! tracks dates, times, and IP addresses for log-in attempts on a Yahoo! account and maintains that information for approximately thirty days. She further *1201 testified that Yahoo! records showed that the IP addresses 68.103.177.226 and 68.103.177.146 belonged to “stevedragon-slayer.”

Perla Rodriguez, the Cox Communications Customer Escalations Coordinator, testified that residential account IP addresses can change because they are leased for twenty-four hours at a time. Cox Communications residential account IP addresses release and renew every twenty-four hours; when an IP address releases, if the same IP address is available, it reattaches within a few seconds. Rodriguez further testified that only one IP address is assigned to a user at a time and that it is the customer’s address on the internet when he or she is online. She stated that the IP address 68.103.177.146 was used by Perrine. Perrine was convicted on all counts.

Perrine thereafter filed a motion for a new trial, a motion for a judgment of acquittal, and a motion for arrest of judgment. After denying the motions, the district court sentenced Perrine to 235 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by supervised release for life. Perrine appeals, arguing (1) the district court erred in failing to suppress evidence obtained against him in violation of the Fourth Amendment and/or 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) and 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 5743(d); and (2) the district court erred in failing to dismiss the case against Perrine due to outrageous government conduct.

DISCUSSION

Perrine appeals the denial of his motion to suppress.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
518 F.3d 1196, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 5251, 2008 WL 638687, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-perrine-ca10-2008.