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? Subject: Akron Beacon Journal Story about Munroe Falls BBS
Fellow USENET news administrators,
The following is a front page story published in the Akron Beacon
Journal on, Monday Mar. 22, 1993, under the byline of Charlene Nevada,
Beacon Journal staff writer. This story is copyrighted by the Akron
Beacon Journal, and commercial use or resale of this information is
forbidden. Permission to post this story to USENET has been generously
granted by Mr. Stewart Warner, Deputy Managing Editor.
I also talked with Charlene Nevada, court reporter, and she
approved my request to post the story, so long as her editor agreed.
If you appreciate the story and permissions, you may snail-mail
c/o Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, Ohio 44309-0640, USA to
express your thanks.
The agreement is that I post the story "in full" -- no selective
editing.
Typographical errors, etc. are mine. Watch out for double
"d"s... redpoll has a sticky "d" key.
Dick
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= begin copyrighted story =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
(front page - page A1)
Headline: Police say they were taking a byte out of crime
subhead: * Munroe Falls man was arrested for having X-rated pictures
on his computer bulletin board; his parents believe the sting operation
was politically motivated
BY CHARLENE NEVADA
Beacon Journal staff writer
When the police cars pulled up to David Lehrer's quiet Munroe
Falls street last June, it was a little like they were swooping down
on a major criminal.
Police Chief Steve Stahl went to the door and told Lehrer that he
had a search warrant to seize computer equipment belonging to Lehrer's
son, Mark. The chief told the elder Lehrer that there was reason to
believe Mark Lehrer, then 22, was using the computer and a modem to
disseminate matter harmful to juveniles.
Essentially, the chief said, it appeared that there were dirty
pictures on a popular computer bulletin board operated by the younger
Lehrer and that teenagers could use their own computers to view the
dirty pictures.
The police went through the Lehrers' home -- seizing, labeling
and photographing anything and everything that fit on the computer.
It was just like on a police television show, only it was happening in
Munroe Falls and the accused was a college student computer whiz.
Greg Lehrer, Mark's younger brother, remembers asking one of
the officers: ``Why don't you go
See COMPUTER, Page A4
(page A4)
(four column photograph - LEW STAMP/Beacon Journal)
Legend: David Lehrer (left) and his son Mark question why Munroe
Falls police targeted Mark's computer bulletin board, the Akron
Anomaly.
Headline: COMPUTER
subhead: * Lehrer received no jail time, no probation and a small
fine, but had to give up his beloved home computer
Continued from Page A1
out and find some real criminals?''
That was nine months ago.
Some might still ask that question.
The case of the State of Ohio vs. Mark Lehrer was closed last
week when Lehrer stood before a judge in Summit County and pleaded
guilty to one rather strange misdemeanor: attempted possession of a
criminal tool.
Lehrer and his family said the plea bargain was a way to put the
matter behind them without risking a jury trial and more legal
expenses. They consider the whole episode a witch hunt by Munroe
Falls police.
David Lehrer has said from the beginning that Munroe Falls police
only wanted to appropriate his son's high-powered computer -- which
they labeled a criminal tool -- for their own use.
Within the computing community, the case caused so much outrage
that some lawyers and accountants set up a defense fund to help
Lehrer. More than $1,500 came from all over the country.
Munroe Falls Police Chief Stahl is about as unhappy over the
resolution as the Lehrers.
Stahl wanted a felony conviction. The chief denied being on a
witch hunt for criminals in a relatively crime-free suburban
community.
Lehrer's attorney, Don Varian, said the prosecutor offered to
plea bargain because prosecutors would have had problems going to
trial: ``They would have lost and they knew it,'' he said.
On this much everyone agrees: Between last June and last week,
the case took lots of strange turns.
_The Akron Anomaly_
It started one day last spring when Munroe Falls police got a tip
from a Kent State University student who said he was concerned that
obscene material was available to juveniles through a computer
bulletin board known as the Akron Anomaly.
The Akron Anomaly was the baby of Mark Lehrer, a University of
Akron student. Lehrer has been into computers since he was in grade
school and his dad brought the first one home. Among people who love
computers, bulletin boards are a way to share ideas and programs.
Bulletin board users are a little like yesterday's ham radio
operators.
The operator of a computer bulletin board is usually someone who
has lots of games, pictures and programs to share.
Others can sign onto their own computers -- and with the aid of
a modem and telephone line -- tap into the bulletin board and copy the
files.
As computers go, Lehrer had a V-8 engine, a 486 IBM clone with
500 megabytes of memory. (The whole Bible could be stored in 1 1/2 of
those megabytes.)
Lehrer works at a computer store in Stark County. He was allowed
to buy accessories and upgrades at discount. His system -- not
including discs -- was valued at about $3,000.
The bulletin board was so successful that early last year a local
computer group called it one of the best around.
Those who wanted to use the bulletin board more than 45 minutes
a day were asked to pay $15 a year, which Lehrer applied to his phone
bill.
_X-rated material_
The board had an adult section with X-rated pictures and movies.
Those who wanted access to the adult section had to send Lehrer a
copy of a drivers's license and get a special clearance.
Computer users don't just take things from a bulletin board.
They contribute, too.
Programs and pictures sent to the Anomaly were received in sort
of an ``in'' basket. Lehrer then sorted them and filed them by category.
The X-rated stuff -- which Lehrer said was less than 2 percent of
the available files -- was put into the restricted-entry adult
category. According to Stahl, some of the X-rated files wound up in
the clean section.
One in particular troubled Stahl. It was labeled ``69'', a slang
term for oral sex, and had thre X's behind it.
To Stahl, that meant dirty. And since it wasn't in a
restricted-access section, anyone could see it.
But since Munroe Falls didn't actually have any outraged parents
complaining, the police set up a sting operation.
Working on the advice of prosecutors from the Cuyahoga Falls
Municipal Court, police found a 15-year-old volunteer and had him
apply for membership under a fake name. They sat him down at a
computer and had him press the button to access one of the X-rated
files. Then he left because his parents didn't want him viewing the
material.
Lehrer was charged with disseminating matter harmful to juveniles
and possession of criminal tool -- his computer.
At a preliminary hearing last June, Cuyahoga Falls Municipal
Judge James Bierce warned that more evidence would be needed to
convict Lehrer. Nonetheless, the matter was bound over to the grand
jury.
And that's where it died. Just why isn't clear. Grand jury
proceedings are secret.
Stahl said the grand jury didn't actually get to see the
pictures.
Varian has his own theory.
The police didn't have an independent witnesses saying they or
their children were offended, Varian said. All they had was the
15-year-old kid who was set up. That meant the jury would have had to
look at the issue of entrapment. Jurors might not have liked that.
_New charges_
But the matter didn't end with the grand jury no-billing the
issue of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
New charges surfaced.
When authorities seized Lehrer's computer, they also took those
shopping bags full of floppy discs. And apparently among them were
some sex pictures in which the subjects cound have been under 18.
So Lehrer was indicted for pandering obscenity involving minors.
It didn't matter that the pictures came from a disc and weren't
on line or available through the bulletin board.
The new charges made David Lehrer, Mark's father, suspect even
more that there was a hidden agenda.
_Politics at work?_
Lehrer chairs the city's charter review commission. Last May,
the commission voted not to make the police chief's job classified,
which would have offered Stahl a great measure of job protection.
Plus, after the bust, Susan Lehrer -- Mark's mother -- visited
the chief. She took notes. She said Stahl talked about how her son's
computer could be used in police work.
Stahl denied his actions were politically motivated. He also
denied wanting to get the computer, which is now in the hands of state
law enforcement officials.
The chief said he decided it would be wrong to ignore the case
just because Mark Lehrer's father held a public position.
Stahl denied digging through the floppies to find more to charge
Lehrer with. The Bureau of Criminal Investigation dit that, he said.
_Computer gone for good_
Mark Lehrer acknowledged having some adult files in the
unrestricted area. With 10,000 files to deal with, he said, it was a
clerical error.
Summit County Prosecutor Lynn Slaby said that it would have been
tough to convict Lehrer on the kiddie porn charges because proving the
ages of the people in the pictures would have been tough. Varian said
the women looked in the range of 16 to 20.
To salvage the case, prosecutors offered the plea bargain.
Lehrer said he agreed to it because expert witnesses -- people to
testify the people in the picture weren't under 18 -- would have cost
$6,000.
Most importantly, he said: ``I didn't want to go to trial for
child pornography. Juries sometimes convict people unfairly.''
He got no jail time, no probation and a small fine. But he had
to give up his computer.
``We did not endorse the plea agreement,'' Stahl said. He said
he still believes that Lehrer is guilty of disseminating matter
harmful to juveniles.
The chief said he isn't on an obscenity crusade. ``We're not
Ravenna,'' he said, referring to that city's anti-porn-crusading
mayor, Donald Kainrad.
To Lehrer -- who sees an empty room instead of a sophisticated
computer -- it's been a nightmare and the end of a great hobby.
``Being hit with child pornography charges'' was far from just, he
says. ``It's scary what people -- police and prosecuters -- can do to
a citizen.''
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= end copyrighted story =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Please be careful out there.
Dick
--
Richard E. Depew, Munroe Falls, OH red@redpoll.neoucom.edu (home)
"...plug the RS-232 connector on the back side of the Mini Modem 2400 into
the RS-232 connector on your computer, then screw up." - modem instructions
---
* PCB/UseNet Gateway from Sparkware #3
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From: red@redpoll.neoucom.edu (Richard E. Depew)
Newsgroups: akr.newsadmin,cle.general,oh.general,comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.policy
Subject: Akron Beacon Journal Story about Munroe Falls BBS
Summary: plead guilty to attempted possession of a criminal tool
Keywords: obscenity, entrapment, pandering, backups
Message-ID: <C4DGxH.3H7@redpoll.neoucom.edu>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 02:44:04 GMT
Followup-To: news.admin.policy
Organization: Home, in Munroe Falls, OH
Lines: 285