By Andrew Seymour
Ottawa Citizen
August 4, 2011
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Quite+graphic+images+bishop+child+porn+collection+court+told/5205489/story.html
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| Former bishop Raymond Lahey was found with child pornography on his laptop in September 2009. Photograph by: Chris Wattie, Reuters Files, National Post |
The child pornography on Catholic bishop Raymond Lahey’s computer was a smaller and less graphic collection than some other child porn collections, one of his lawyers suggested during his sentencing hearing Thursday.
Ottawa police Det. Andrew Thompson agreed with defence lawyer Solomon Friedman that the 588 images on Lahey’s laptop computer were fewer than some other collections he’s examined in his six years investigating child pornography.
Thompson was a lot less willing to agree that the collection wasn’t as graphic, however.
Images involving the torture of young boys was “right up there” with some of the worst stuff he’s seen, Thompson said.
“It doesn’t depict infants, but the explicit images of torture are disturbing,” said Thompson, who called some of the images “quite graphic.”
Thompson added that he rarely had seen offenders who had not only pictures and videos, but also sexually explicit stories. And Lahey was the first to seemingly have a reference to himself in one of his tales — or so the mention of a “Father Raymond” in one of the stories would make it seem. (There is no evidence Lahey wrote or altered any of the stories.)
Thompson testified that the stories often started as soft core porn and escalated to “the explicit, hard core stuff.”
During his cross-examination of the detective, Friedman attempted to portray Lahey as an unsophisticated user of child pornography who relied on web downloads instead of more commonly used file-sharing software.
The majority of Lahey’s collection was of young teen boys posing nude, Friedman suggested.
The term Lahey searched on Google more than 1,800 times — “twink” — commonly referred to in the gay community as a young, effeminate and adult male with a slim body type and no body hair, Friedman suggested.
Friedman also asked if websites, such as the three Lahey most commonly visited, typically posted disclaimers indicating that the images contained on the site were of people over the age of 18.
Thompson agreed.
Lahey had also not encrypted his collection, nor did he store it in organized folders, Friedman suggested.
About half of the images were in an unsorted folder entitled “RJL downloads.” The other half were in a temporary Internet file folder, which Friedman suggested could have consisted of images from “pop-ups,” “pop-unders,” or websites Lahey had never even viewed.
Thompson agreed it was possible Lahey had never seen the images.
Thompson also agreed that Lahey didn’t use any encryption software and there was no evidence Lahey had paid for any of the pornographic images or traded them.
Friedman suggested that of the 155,000 total images found on Lahey’s Toshiba laptop, only 0.1 per cent were child pornography in a place where Lahey definitely could have viewed it.
Thompson agreed, but added that police didn’t count “thousands” of “borderline” images that investigators just weren’t sure were child pornography. Thompson also said Lahey may not have had much time to amass a larger collection. The oldest images date back to 2008.
There was a large volume of adult pornography, Thompson said.
Thompson testified Lahey was sophisticated enough to transfer one of his stories over to a PalmPilot.
He also moved his stories into a folder entitled ‘STR,’ ” Thompson said.
Lahey’s sentencing hearing is expected to continue in December with testimony from a psychiatrist who examined him.
Lahey pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in May. He was arrested at the Ottawa airport in September 2009 after border agents discovered the illicit materials.
On Thursday, Edelson raised the possibility that Lahey — who voluntarily went to jail following his plea — would no longer be behind bars by the time the hearing resumed. While Lahey’s crime carries a one-year mandatory minimum sentence, offenders can be released on parole as early as one-third of the way through their jail term.
Lahey will have served seven months by December.
Contact: aseymour@ottawacitizen.com
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