Tag: child pornography

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In brief: Basketball fever, deadly tracks, terrorizer pleads, and more

Boylan Heights goes nuts March 30 as UVA takes down Purdue to advance to its first Final Four since 1984. Martyn Kyle

Buzzer beater

UVA heads to the Final Four in Minneapolis April 6 after a heart-stopping 80-75 win over Purdue’s Boilermakers, thanks to a last second bucket by Mamadi Diakite to put the Cavs into overtime. The win marks Virginia’s first appearance in the Final Four since 1984, coach Tony Bennett’s 10th year leading the Hoos, and redemption for last year’s first-round loss to a No. 16 seed.

Guilty plea in CHS threat

Albemarle High senior Joao Pedro Souza Ribeiro, 17, pleaded guilty March 27 to making a racist threat online that shut down Charlottesville city schools for two days last month. The Daily Progress reports Ribeiro told a juvenile court judge that he was “bored” in study hall and posted the threat as a joke. He’ll be sentenced April 24. Another Albemarle teen was charged with a felony for a shooting threat to Albemarle High, but police have not released his name.

Suing Alex Jones

Federal Judge Norman Moon ruled that Clean Virginia exec Brennan Gilmore’s defamation lawsuit against Infowars, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and others of his ilk can proceed. Gilmore videoed James Fields plowing into protesters August 12, 2017, and he alleges the defendants spread false information about him, resulting in death threats against him and his family. Jones is also being sued by Sandy Hook parents for claiming the mass murder of children was staged.

One train, two deaths

A Buckingham Branch train struck Sebastian Herrera, 39, of Waynesboro, around noon March 31 in Crozet, and then hours later killed an unidentified man in Waynesboro. Herrera, the third person to die on the train tracks in Crozet since 2015, was killed near Lanetown Road, close to where a Time-Disposal employee died last year.

Orange hotbed

The gated community Lake of the Woods has been the scene of alleged criminal activity recently. Ryan Chamblin, 36, was indicted on 161 counts of possession of child porn March 25. He’d previously been charged with five counts and two of failure to register as a sex offender. That same day, Stafford resident Roy C. Mayberry, 46, was indicted for embezzling more than $450,000 from the Lake of the Woods Association.

Quote of the week

“It’s clear that you would lynch me if you could so I’m never concerned with your thoughts.” —Mayor Nikuyah Walker in a Facebook comment to Justin Beights, who sarcastically said her negativity is inspiring.

Crime pays—a little into government coffers

Cash-strapped localities have been known to use speed traps to plug their budget holes (ahem, Greene County), and after the Department of Justice found that law enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri, had effectively been acting as tax collectors (bringing 23 percent of the town’s revenue in fines and fees), a 2017 report said that a number of other municipalities were doing the same thing. But it’s not the case in Charlottesville and Albemarle. 

“CPD does not use ‘speed traps,’” says Charlottesville police spokesperson Tyler Hawn. “We use traffic enforcement to ensure drivers are following the posted speed limits and rules of the road for everyone’s safety.”

As City Council finalizes its 2020 budget, it voted April 1 to up the local meals and lodging taxes (and seems likely to not raise the real estate tax, after “finding” another $850,000). With all that cash, citizen criminal activities make a small revenue contribution to the proposed $188 million budget. Albemarle County also gets revenue from convictions, a .1% pittance in its $487 million budget.

Here’s how some of the numbers stack up in the proposed fiscal year 2020 budget.

Charlottesville

Court revenue $500,000

Parking fines $420,000

Property tax $73.3 million

Meals tax $14.9 million

Lodging tax $6.4 million

 

Albemarle

Fines and forfeitures: $457,282

Property tax $201 million

Meals tax $9.8 million

Lodging tax $1.2 million

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More child porn charges for former CHS teacher

Rick Wellbeloved-Stone picked up two additional child porn charges in federal court. Photo Charlottesville police

Richard Wellbeloved-Stone sat in federal court this morning, often with his head in his hands, as he waited for an initial appearance before a judge on additional charges of child pornography production and child porn possession, on top of the 19 counts of making child porn he faces in state court.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel Hoppe found probable cause to move the case to a grand jury after the former Charlottesville High environmental sciences teacher, 57, waived his right to a preliminary hearing.

Hoppe also found that Wellbeloved-Stone qualified for court-appointed counsel because his assets are marital property and his wife has filed for a divorce. “Given the nature of the charges, I can anticipate significant costs,” said the judge. Attorney Andre Hakes represents Wellbeloved-Stone on the state charges.

Federal public defender Andrea Harris appeared in court with Wellbeloved-Stone, and she did not seek his release on bond. He’s been held in Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail since his arrest July 27.

He came to law enforcement attention in an online chat on KIK Messenger with an undercover officer in the U.K., who passed along details to Homeland Security July 14. According to a court affidavit, Wellbeloved-Stone, using an account named “bijsincville,” described fantasizing about a prepubescent girl whom he had helped get dressed for bed.

Police searched his home July 25 and found an external hard drive containing 10 files with “titles consistent with child pornography,” according to the affidavit. One had a 9-year-old girl and the video focused on her vagina. Another had a 12-year-old girl performing oral sex on her same-aged boyfriend, and police say the girl is known in the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children.

On Wellbeloved-Stone’s iPhone, agents found 20 images of “a pre-pubescent female’s vagina” taken of the girl waist down. Some of the photos show a male hand manipulating the child’s genitalia, and metadata on the phone shows the photos were taken May 18 and May 20. There were also nonsexual photos taken of the girl before the more graphic images, according to the affidavit.

Wellbeloved-Stone appeared in Charlottesville General District Court September 28, where the prosecution dropped one count of child porn possession.

 

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Plea postponed: Judge wants report, photos in Korte child porn possession case

Walter Korte leaves court August 8, 2017, after a judge holds off accepting a plea agreement. Staff photo

 

One year after the arrest of former UVA film studies professor Walter Korte for the possession of child pornography sent the local cinephile community reeling, he appeared in court August 8 ready to enter a plea—and the judge asked for more information before okaying the agreement.

During his 46-year-career, Korte, 73, advised the fledgling Virginia Film Festival for many years, received a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Milan, and was an expert on the work of Luchino Visconti and the Italian cinema.

The case began last summer when UVA police discovered a cache of porn in a dumpster on Grounds behind Bryan Hall on subsequent days. “The vast majority of the pictures depicted adult, transgender subjects, but a number of images included both clothed and unclothed young males,” said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Amanda Galloway.

Officers also found magazines and junk mail with Korte’s address.

Police set up surveillance on the dumpster, and on August 1, 2016, spied Korte at 6:43am dumping bags filled with more images. Yet another dump August 2 included poster boards of ‘70s teen heartthrob Leif Garrett, Galloway told Judge Cheryl Higgins in Albemarle Circuit Court.

Korte was arrested August 2, charged with two counts of child porn possession and held in jail for over a month. In February, Higgins ruled that the search warrant did not support probable cause because most of the images were legal adult porn or teens not engaged in sex acts, but she allowed the admission of the thousands of images as evidence anyway.

“The vast majority of the images contained legal, adult pornography,” said Galloway.

Questionable images were sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to be run against their child pornography database, which found one known child porn image, and to the state attorney general’s office, “which identified 695 images as legal ‘child erotica,’ not meeting the definition of child pornography under Virginia law,” Galloway told the judge.

The AG’s office also found 16 potential child porn images of pubescent males, but none matched the national database, their ages could not be determined and the images came from adult porn sites, said the prosecutor.

During the yearlong investigation, no hands-on victims were found, and a psychosexual evaluation determined Korte was not a threat, said Galloway. Because he had no criminal history and because of his age, the commonwealth agreed to a plea in which he could serve a maximum of 12 months and would become a registered sex offender, she said.

Galloway also pointed out that had Korte been convicted of possessing one image from the national database, sentencing guidelines would recommend probation, no incarceration and no sex offender registration. “The agreement allows for finality,” she said.

Higgins, however, was not ready to close the case. “I am concerned about the court being tied” to the agreement, she said. She also said she had “great reservations” about the photos, and asked to see the two alleged child porn images, which are under seal, and to have a pre-sentence report.

Korte will be back in court November 14 to learn her decision.

 

 

 

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Invalid warrant: Judge allows evidence in Korte case anyway

Former UVA film studies professor Walter Korte was well-regarded by many film students and aficionados in town. Albemarle County police

Ruling that the search warrant that led to the arrest of former UVA film studies professor Walter Korte was invalid—and that the two images used as the basis for the warrant in fact weren’t child pornography—Judge Cheryl Higgins nonetheless allowed the admission of the photos, citing a “good faith” exemption for police seeking warrants.

Korte, 73, was arrested August 2 and charged with two counts of child porn possession. He was held without bail until September 6.

The arrest followed a four-day police investigation after pornographic images were discovered in a dumpster on UVA Grounds behind Bryan Hall July 29, according to Korte’s motion to suppress.

The UVA officer, who found hundreds of pornographic images, came back on subsequent days and found three Time magazines with Korte’s address, as well as UVA letterhead with his name among the photos.

University police staked out the dumpster August 1 and captured Korte on video, according to the complaint.

In court February 8, Korte’s attorney Bonnie Lepold argued that the evidence obtained from the search warrant should be suppressed because the warrant for Korte’s Bryan Hall office and Fosters Branch Road home was obtained without probable cause.

Albemarle police Detective Mark Belew requested a search warrant August 2, and his affidavit cited UVA investigator George Vieira, who “determined two of the images were clearly of prepubescent males lewdly naked or involved in sexual acts,” says the motion.

The two images were not attached to the affidavit, and “nowhere on the affidavit did it state the images were of child pornography,” said Lepold. Without the images, the magistrate “might as well rubberstamp” search warrants, she added.

“Our position is the rest of the warrant is insufficient,” she said. “It talks about pornography and separately about juveniles, but says nothing about child pornography.”

Said Lepold, “There is no image that even comes close to involving a sex act. Near nudity is not sufficient under the law.”

And most of the images were adult porn, which, she pointed out, are legal.

To allow the warrant because Belew relied upon another officer’s characterization was “disingenuous and, quite frankly, frightening,” she said.

Higgins recessed for several hours to review the images, and said the search warrant was unsupported by probable cause, but denied the motion to suppress because of the “good faith” exception.

Legal expert David Heilberg says, “If the images are not child pornography, this sounds like an adjudication of innocence on those charges. This is better than getting the evidence suppressed for the defense.”

Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci said in an e-mail, “The possession of child pornography charges against Mr. Korte have not been nolle prossed.” He declined to say whether the prosecution has other evidence.

Korte led UVA’s film studies program since 1970, was an authority on Luchino Visconti films and the Italian cinema, and was a long-time adviser to the Virginia Film Festival. He resigned from the university November 1.

He is scheduled for trial May 19.

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UVA prof charged with child porn possession

Former UVA film studies professor Walter Korte was well-regarded by many film students and aficionados in town. Albemarle County police

UVA drama professor Walter Korte Jr., 72, was arrested August 2 and charged with two counts of possessing child pornography. He is currently being held in Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail without bond.

During his 46-year career, Korte served as the director of film within the Drama Department and has been recognized as an authority on Luchino Visconti films and the Italian cinema.

Korte was the the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Milan, a program that provides funding for those who wish to advance their research and university teaching. Korte also advised the Virginia Film Festival for many years since it began in 1988, but has not been involved with the festival for at least the past eight years, says UVA spokesperson Anthony de Bruyn.

“When I was the director of the Virginia Film Festival, I’d often hear from people who were UVA alums in the film industry say that Walter’s classes and teaching had inspired them,” says Richard Herskowitz, now director of Cinema Pacific at the University of Oregon. “He lived and breathed film.”

According to Herskowitz, Korte’s office was filled to the brim with film books that there was hardly a place to sit. “He was considered a well respected man and very knowledgeable,” says Herskowitz.

According to UVA’s student syllabus, Korte had plans to teach two classes for the 2016 fall semester: Cinema As An Art Form and History of Film I.
Korte has been placed on administrative leave by the university and his professor profile has been removed from the Media Studies department web page. 

Updated 4:22pm that Korte is not currently involved with the Virginia Film Festival.