IP: DAY2: The strange saga of a Xerox engineer accused of child porn

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 11:00:21 -0500
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
>
> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49013,00.html
>
>    Where Was Kid Porn Evidence?
>    By Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)
>    2:00 a.m. Dec. 12, 2001 PST
>
>    (Part 2 of a series. In the previous installment: Court records show
>    puzzling inconsistencies in the case against Larry Benedict.)
>
>    CANANDAIGUA, New York -- Larry Benedict's halcyon life as a soon-to-be
>    husband, a senior engineer at Xerox and a computer-game buff abruptly
>    ended on Feb. 10, 1995.
>
>    On that chilly winter evening, an armed squad of New York state police
>    and postal inspectors broke through Benedict's patio door. Their
>    search warrant cited violations of 18 U.S.C. 2252: the federal child
>    pornography law.
>
>    In his application for a search warrant, veteran postal inspector
>    Terrence Loftus wrote: "I do believe that there is evidence of the
>    commission of a federal offense, contraband and the fruits of a
>    violation of Title 18, United States Code ... at the residence of
>    Lawrence Benedict."
>
>    Born in 1944, Loftus began his career as a postal inspector in 1971,
>    and eventually became a specialist in cases involving marijuana
>    shipments, obscenity and child pornography. As of February 1995,
>    Loftus claimed to have investigated over 40 child porn cases and to
>    have participated in dozens of raids on defendants' homes.
>
>    [...]
>
>    While some of the variances in Loftus' testimony can be attributed to
>    expected memory lapses -- he testified about the February 1995 raid
>    four years later -- other discrepancies are more difficult to explain.
>
>    [...]

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