Blogger's child porn case now in hands of feds
The Saratogian, New York/July 9, 2014
By Caitlin Morris
Albany -- The child porn charges against local blogger John Tighe, known for stirring up controversy and rumors in the Spa City and beyond, were upgraded to federal court this week, and new court documents outlining the allegations against Tighe were made public.
Computers and electronics were confiscated by New York State Police last October during an investigation into Tighe’s alleged unauthorized access of computer systems owned and maintained by NXIVM Inc., a local group that many define as a cult. It wasn’t until February, however, that Tighe was arrested on child pornography charges.
After the computers and hardware were confiscated, Tighe’s blog, Saratoga in Decline, fell silent with the announcement it was “closed till further notice.” Eventually, the blog in its entirety was removed from the Internet.
In the newly released court documents, a state police investigator describes the scene of the Tighe household in Milton, which he shares with his wife, when the search warrant was executed.
Trooper Rodger F. Kirsopp recalls that Tighe was cooperative during the search, responding to questions from his seat in the living room, when he asked Kirsopp a memorable question.
“Can I get in trouble for anything else on those computers other than NXIVM?” Tighe reportedly asked Kirsopp.
“All the computer stuff is mine, my wife doesn’t know anything about computer stuff. She has no knowledge of what is on there, I gave her the small laptop upstairs for her to look at stuff on,” Tighe continued, according to the court documents.
While the child porn charge is still pending in state court, it will be prosecuted in only one court, likely the U.S. District Court in Albany, according to John Duncan, an executive assistant U.S. attorney.
Tighe’s attorney, Terence Kindlon, said the case was moved to federal court because his client will likely incur a stiffer penalty if convicted.
“It’s a very serious charge,” Kindlon said.
If convicted, Tighe would face a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Kindlon, a criminal defense attorney from Albany with 40 years of experience, much of which, he said, was spent defending people charged with sexual crimes and pornography charges, explained he couldn’t discuss the facts of the case but that Tighe has entered a plea of not guilty.
Tighe is also facing a computer trespassing charge in Albany County, Kindlon said, in connection to NXIVM, which is “relatively insignificant” compared against the federal child pornography charge.
The court documents describe the first child pornography file being found only five days after the computers were seized. A warrant was obtained Nov. 7 that authorized the search of the computers and digital storage devices for evidence relating to “depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit content,” but it wasn’t until Feb. 26 that Tighe was arrested.
In all, law-enforcement officials claim to have seized more than 400 video files of suspected child pornography. The files were located within folders labeled with the names of months and years.
The court documents provide sexually graphic descriptions of three videos allegedly possessed by Tighe. All three videos involved females around the age of 7.
A big part of Duncan’s job in the U.S. Attorney’s Office is trying to track down the children featured in the videos they confiscate. He said they routinely pass on the images of children to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has a sophisticated search system that tries to identify new faces.
“Sadly, we have a lot of these cases, but we’re aggressive on how we pursue them. We take a pretty hard line on this because it’s children that are being exploited,” Duncan said.
On Monday, Tighe appeared in U.S. District Court before Magistrate Christian F. Hummel and was allowed to remain out on a jail bond, although he is restricted to his home and must wear a position-monitoring ankle bracelet. He is also not allowed to use the Internet or cellphones.
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