United States v. Sarras

575 F.3d 1191, 2009 WL 2176643
Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit·Decided July 23, 2009·No. 08-11757·Published·Cited by 273 cases

Opinion

*1196 HULL, Circuit Judge:

The previous opinion issued in this case, United States v. Sarras, 571 F.3d 1111 (11th Cir.2009), is hereby VACATED. In its place, on petition for panel rehearing, we file this revised opinion. The petition for panel rehearing is otherwise DENIED.

Defendant-Appellant Donatos Sarras appeals his convictions and sentences for persuading his minor step-daughter to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing photos of such, conduct and for knowingly possessing child pornography. After review and oral argument, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

In 2000, the minor victim (“E.M.”) was seven years old, and defendant Sarras married her mother. In October 2005, Sarras and E.M.’s mother divorced, but they did not tell E.M. about the divorce until July 2006. Sarras did not move out of the family residence (the “Wheatfield residence”) until August 2006. After moving out, Sarras kept a bedroom for E.M. in his new home (the “Tweed residence”). E.M. stayed overnight with Sarras at the Tweed residence three times a week during the fall of 2006, which is when the sexual conduct occurred.

Sarras was charged with knowingly persuading E.M. to engage in sexually explicit conduct on October 16, 17, and 23, 2006, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), (e) (Counts I, II, and III), and knowingly possessing child pornography on May 7, 2007, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B) and (b)(2) (Count IV). The first trial resulted in a hung jury. Sarras was convicted on all counts in the second trial. We detail the procedural history and evidence from the second trial.

A. Officer Ortiz’s Recorded Interview

On May 7, 2007, E.M., then fourteen years old, reported to the Seminole County, Florida, Sheriffs Office that, when she was thirteen years old, Sarras had engaged in sexual intercourse with her and had taken pictures. On May 7, Dana Ortiz, an investigator with the office’s Division of Crimes against Children, conducted a sworn, recorded interview of E.M.

E.M. told Ortiz that Sarras was her stepfather and she stayed with him at the Tweed residence several nights a week. According to E.M., around October or November 2006, Sarras began having sexual intercourse and oral sex with E.M. during her visits to his Tweed residence unless she “made up an excuse” to avoid it. Sarras had sexual intercourse with E.M. more than ten times, performed oral sex on her about three times, and had her perform oral sex on him more than ten times. E.M. was unsure of the dates of these sexual encounters and could not say for sure whether they were before or after Thanksgiving or Christmas.

E.M. told Officer Ortiz that, on one occasion, Sarras took “a lot” of pictures while she was naked and while she was performing sexual acts on and with him. Sarras used a digital camera that he kept at his Tweed residence. 1 Asked if Sarras had shown her pictures of other girls, E.M. said he had not. Sarras tried to show E.M. the pictures he took of her, but she did not want to look at them and refused. E.M. said that Sarras’s laptop computer was always on the coffee table in front of the television. E.M. believed that Sarras had downloaded the pictures to his laptop because “he said that he wanted to store them so he could ... look at them sometimes.”

*1197 Under the supervision of Officer Ortiz, E.M. telephoned Sarras. During the recorded call, Sarras repeatedly denied any involvement in the alleged offenses and asked if E.M. needed help. Sarras told E.M. that he was going to call her mother immediately about the call. Sarras attempted to call several times, but, at Ortiz’s direction, E.M.’s mother did not answer. Within minutes of the call, Sarras deleted 41 sexual images of E.M. on his laptop, uninstalled his access to LimeWire, and deleted adult pornographic images downloaded earlier that day through Lime-Wire. 2

B. Search of Sarras’s Home

Immediately after the Sarras call, Officer Ortiz prepared an affidavit for a warrant to search Sarras’s home. 3 Ortiz’s affidavit said the victim reported that: (1) her stepfather, Sarras, sexually battered her at his residence from October 2006 through January 2007; (2) Sarras had sexual intercourse with her more than ten times, licked her breast approximately two times, performed oral sex on her approximately three times, and received oral sex from her over ten times; and (3) Sarras took numerous pictures of their sexual activities with a digital camera that he kept in his home. The affidavit listed types of erotic depictions that computer forensic examiners should look for in the seized media and identified computers and other devices capable of storing such depictions digitally.

Finding that Ortiz’s affidavit established probable cause, a state circuit judge issued a warrant authorizing the officers (1) to search Sarras’s residence “for computer or digital data, programs, applications, files, electronic communications, or other digitally stored date [sic], dynamic data such as processes, open files, services, data in memory, data in an encrypted or decrypted state ... in the form of graphics files ... or other visual depiction or other physical computer/digital data of [a] child of less than eighteen (18) years of age” engaging in sexual acts and (2) to image forensically “[t]he data storage devices” onsite or at the Sheriffs Office computer forensic lab depending on any technical limitations encountered at the described location.

At Sarras’s Tweed residence, officers seized a laptop computer from the coffee table, a Sony Cybershot digital camera, and other computer equipment. 4 A search of the camera’s memory stick revealed 41 images of E.M. engaged in sexually explicit conduct. A search of the laptop computer revealed the same 41 images (“the laptop photos”). A computer forensics examiner determined that (1) all of the pictures were taken with a Sony Cybershot digital camera, (2) 15 photos were taken on October 16, 2006, (3) 10 were taken on October 17, 2006, and (4) 16 were taken on October 23-24, 2006.

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United States v. Sarras, 575 F.3d 1191, 2009 WL 2176643 (11th Cir. 2009).

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