United States v. Richardson

583 F. Supp. 2d 694, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88242, 2008 WL 4761735
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedOctober 31, 2008
DocketCriminal 3:2006-31
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 583 F. Supp. 2d 694 (United States v. Richardson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Richardson, 583 F. Supp. 2d 694, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88242, 2008 WL 4761735 (W.D. Pa. 2008).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION and ORDER OF COURT

KIM R. GIBSON, District Judge.

Before the Court is the Defendant’s Supplemental Motion to Suppress Evidence Obtained as a Result of an Unlawful Search and Seizure with Accompanying Citation of Authority (Document No. 83) filed on April 11, 2008. This motion was filed by the Defendant’s current counsel, Adam Cogan, Esquire who was appointed by the Court on October 31, 2007. See Document No. 70. Without objection of the Government, Attorney Cogan was permitted to file the present motion after seeking permission from the Court to do so during a hearing on February 14, 2008. See Document No. 78.

An evidentiary hearing on the supplemental motion was held on June 2, 2008. The Defendant filed Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law on July 24, 2008. See Document No. 97. The Government filed its Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and Post-Hearing Brief on August 22, 2008. See Document No. 101.

Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231, this Court possesses subject matter jurisdiction over the offense alleged: possession of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor. See 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B). Venue is proper in this court. See Fed. R.Crim.P. 18.

I. FINDINGS OF FACT

The Court sets forth both the findings of fact from its previous Memorandum Opinion and Order of Court (Document No. 51), now published as United States v. Richardson, 501 F.Supp 2d 724 (W.D.Pa. August 3, 2007(Richardson I), and its supplemental findings of fact originating from the record produced as a result of the Supplemental Motion to Suppress. The supplemental findings of fact are set forth in bold accompanied by supplemental, alphanumeric numbering and inserted within the Court’s previous findings in the most logical sequence. In a few instances, additional citations to the supplemental hearing transcript have been added to the previous findings of fact, the email address associated with the Defendant has been corrected throughout the original and supplemental findings of fact (see footnote one) and one finding of fact has been amended to correct a previous factual error it contained. See Finding of Fact (“FOF”) 37 and footnote four, infra. Additional, non-substantive corrections and amendments of the original findings of fact are indicated in bold.

1. In July 2006, Special Agent Patricia Lieb (Lieb) of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Pittsburgh Office, was assigned a case involving Jamie Richardson (Defendant) as a result of “Operation Emissary.” Transcript (Document No. 43)(“T.”), p. 7.

la. Special Agent James Kilpatrick (Kilpatrick), a “certified computer forensics examiner” has been employed with ICE since 2001 and was assigned to the Pittsburgh ICE Resident Agent in Charge in 2006. Supplemental Hearing Transcript (Document No. 95) (“S.T.”), pp. 46-47.

2. “Operation Emissary” is the name for an investigation conducted by the Newark, New Jersey Office of ICE that concerned people who subscribed to or attempted subscription to an Internet Web site entitled “ILLEGAL.CP” which was a website that published child pornography; “CP” refers to child pornography. T., p. 8.

2a. Defendant’s Exhibit A contains the information provided to Lieb from Operation Emissary regarding the two attempts to access “ILLEGAL.CP” in January and February 2006 including *697 the Defendant’s name, physical address, his email address of jamie_lee_r@yahoo. com, credit card number with its accompanying cw number, bank name and expiration date, two Internet Protocol addresses and a telephone number that has not been disproven to belong to the Defendant. S.T., pp. 15-20, Defendant’s Exhibit A.

2b. The two attempts to access the website reflected in the information at Defendant’s Exhibit A are identical as to the identifying information of the Defendant with the exception of the two Internet Protocol addresses which differ. S.T., pp. 18-20; Defendant’s Exhibit A.

3. As a result of information provided from the Newark ICE office, Lieb was aware that a person attempted subscribing to “ILLEGAL. CP” in January 2006 and February 2006 through the email address of “jamie_lee_r@yahoo.com”. T., pp. 8-9. 1

4. Newark ICE believed this email address belonged to the Defendant who resided at 1529 Pitt Road in Altoona, Pennsylvania and had concluded that the computer from which someone had attempted the subscription had an Internet Protocol (IP) address that was registered to the Defendant at the same address. T., p. 9.

5. Also among the available evidence was information related to the credit card account that was used in the attempted subscription and such information revealed that no charge was reflected on the credit card account because the “credit card was not functioning at the time”; a credit card charge of $79.99 was necessary to access the website. T., pp. 9-10.

5a. The information gathered by ICE in Defendant’s Exhibit A regarding the credit card number that was used in the attempts to access the Web site indicated that the credit card number was inactive. S.T., pp. 26-27, 44.

5b. The information from Newark ICE revealed that the Defendant was not successful in logging into the Web site and downloading any information. S.T., p. 44.

6.Lieb admits that the whole of this information which was received from Newark ICE did not establish that the Defendant or the person using “jamie_ lee_r@yahoo.com” actually accessed the website in question, only that access was “attempted”. T., p. 10.

6a. The Newark office of ICE contacted Verizon after determining that it was the Internet service provider for the two IP addresses in question. S.T., pp. 20-21.

6b. In response to a grand jury subpoena, Verizon produced what has been designated Defendant’s Exhibit B, that is information regarding the activity for the two IP addresses in question. S.T., pp. 21-22.

6c. Following up on the information provided by ICE Newark, Lieb had a grand jury subpoena laid on the bank account numbers at First Commonwealth Bank reflected in Defendant’s Exhibit A and the resulting information revealed that “[tjhere were no charges to the bank account number.” S.T., pp. 17-18.

6d. Lieb had no other information indicating attempted access to the Web site by someone other than the Defendant at the time she approached the Defendant on September 6, 2006. S.T., pp. 24-26.

*698 6e. Lieb did not know prior to going to the Richardsons’ residence if they used a “wireless router device” with their computer. S.T., p. II.

7.

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Bluebook (online)
583 F. Supp. 2d 694, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88242, 2008 WL 4761735, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-richardson-pawd-2008.