Distributing bestiality pornography via computer - Memphis, TN

Sunday, Jul 24, 1994

A husband and wife were convicted of distributing pornography via computer yesterday in a case that raised questions about how to apply federal obscenity law to the information superhighway. Robert and Carleen Thomas, both 38, of Milpitas, Calif., were each convicted of 11 counts of transmitting obscenity through interstate phone lines via their members-only computer bulletin board. Each count carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The Thomases refused to comment after the verdict. They remain free on $20,000 bail. No sentencing date was set. During the weeklong trial, jurors were shown photographs carried over the Thomases' bulletin board featuring scenes of bestiality and other sexual fetishes. The images were available, for a fee, to computer users around the world. A postal inspector testified he joined the bulletin board under a fake name and received sexually explicit pictures in his computer in Memphis. The defense argued unsuccessfully before trial that prosecutors had shopped around for a place to try the case, looking for a city where a conservative jury might be found.

"This case would never have gone to trial in California," said defense attorney Richard Williams, who plans an appeal. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Newsom said the trial was held in Memphis because pictures carried on the bulletin board were received there. In this age of international computer networks, the federal trial raised questions about a 1973 Supreme Court ruling that obscenity must be judged according to local community standards. The opinion was designed to let local citizens say whether they want X-rated bookstores or movie theaters in their communities and get judges out of the business of deciding what is obscene, said Stephen Bates, a senior fellow with the Annenberg Washington Program, a communications think tank.

"But it may not work anymore," he said from his office in Washington. Under that standard, federal juries in the most conservative parts of the country could decide what sexually explicit images and words get on the Internet, Bates said. Ultimately, the issue probably will wind up back at the Supreme Court. The trial marked the first time prosecutors in an obscenity case went after a bulletin board operator in the locale where its material was received, rather than where it originated, Bates and others said. Prosecutors have won convictions of computer users for trading pornographic pictures of children on bulletin boards, but child porn is not protected by the First Amendment. The Memphis conviction did not involve child pornography; Thomas was acquitted on a charge of accepting child pornography mailed to him by the undercover postal inspector.

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