During his FBI career, Sachtleben served as team leader at the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya and the USS Cole in Yemen, and investigated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing. He also coordinated the search of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s cabin in Lincoln, Mont., even writing Kaczynski’s arrest affidavit, calling removing a live bomb from Kaczynski’s shack “the toughest experience I had.”

According to an affidavit from FBI agent Kerri Reifel, Sachtleben apparently used an unsecured wireless network belonging to a 73-year-old Illinois man to share 220 images of child pornography one night in September 2010 (the FBI obtained a search warrant for the elderly man’s home and found no child pornography on the computers at the residence).

FBI agents later arrested a man who had allegedly traded child pornography with Sachtleben via email. Sachtleben was caught because he allegedly accessed the email address pedodave69@yahoo.com from his home. Investigators found 30 child pornography pictures and movies on a Sony laptop he kept in his red Chevy Suburban, which also contained various work files, according to the FBI.

Sachtleben was caught because he allegedly accessed the email address pedodave69@yahoo.com from his home.

The New York Court of Appeals has released an important decision that viewing online child pornography is not illegal under New York law. The ruling was triggered an outcry and demands for legislative reforms. However, the opinion is worth reading and raises a broader issue on the required level of intent and knowledge for these crimes.

The decision will result in the reversal of two dozen cases involving online pornography. The case before the Court involved former Marist College professor of public administration James D. Kent, 65. Kent who was convicted on 136 counts of procuring and possessing child pornography in 2009. He was sentenced to one to three years.

[...]

Advocates are calling the ruling an “outrage” and the “decriminalizing” of child pornography. However, Ciparick’s decision simply emphasized conventional notions of scienter: “Merely viewing Web images of child pornography does not, absent other proof, constitute either possession or procurement within the meaning of our Penal Law.”

[...]

One can certainly argue both sides of this question, but the vitriol and hatred directed at these judges is unwarranted and unfair. These judges are not pro-child pornography any more than the vast majority of citizens. They are attempting to maintain basic requirements of intent and proof in an area where politicians have been competing to show that they are the toughest on child porn. These are legitimate concerns raised by these judges, who voted to reverse despite the considerable public pressures and passions.