Michael Fortino
Ars Technica via the Consumerist:
a man in Arkansas has just been sentenced to 135 months in jail and a $10,000 fine after a Best Buy tech found child porn on the man’s hard drive.
Michael Fortino, an “author, speaker, and media personality,” found himself in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on a business trip, and he took his laptop to a local Best Buy for repair. A Geek Squad tech there found child porn pics on the PC and contacted the police, who obtained a search warrant and examined the PC.
Because Fortino traveled across state lines with his laptop, he was accused of interstate trafficking in child porn and faced federal charges. Fortino pleaded guilty earlier this year, and his sentence was handed down yesterday.
27–stiffler==you think so huh? Lets agree we both hope so.
No innocent person ever pleads guilty huh? Lets agree we both hope so.
So, as stated, he is charged for mere possession and will be supported by our taxes for 11 years and so far, everyone here thinks thats basically ok. And thats why it is.
This says a lot about Best Buy. If you bring in your computer for repairs, they will snoop through your harddrive. I wonder if this is mentioned in the Best Buy terms of service?
31 – bobbo
“will be supported by our taxes for 11 years”
…if that’s what it takes to protect our children; he can spend 135 months with all of the other “innocent” people in there. Haven’t you heard? Everyone in prison is innocent.
>>When informing on fellow citizens is encouraged and rewarded by
>>the government, our society begins to resemble Stalinist Russia
>>in the 1930s
Oh, we’ve been there for a long time. There was a little bit of “collateral damage”, like Larry the Light Loafer Craig, Ted Haggard, the Beltway Madam’s “boys”, etc., but for the most part, those who have been imprisoned were the target of Jimmy Swaggart’s crusead. Before he started jerking off with prossies in the Motel 6.
Um, in the case of the Russians, they were being persecuted for political dissent. That’s quite different from child pornography.
#35: According to NAMBLA, it is political dissent!
(har har)
Not only did this guy have child porn… he also had a comercial videoclip of kiddie porn AND he made a videotape of his friends children. He is where he needs to be
“Former President Bill Clinton once praised Fortino, and President George W. Bush has called him a role model for future generations.”
That’s the whole quote.
Who was imprisoned by Jimmy Swaggart’s “crusead”, Mr. Mustard?
To my grandpa (90 years old) even a 50 year old woman is probably a kiddie porn.
To my 16 year old brother any 18 year old girl is an old woman.
If he had porn with obvious children (no pubic hair etc) then to hell with him. But if had porn with young looking girls, how do they know this is child porn?
My girlfriend is Asian, 23 years old, but she look like 15-16 according to most of my white friends. If I was 30 year old white guy, some of you would probably call police on me for having sex with “underage minor”, wouldn’t you? You people suck.
A lot of tangents here.
Michael Fortino was born and grew up in Pittsburgh. After attending a university there, and as he became “popular” , he was often seen in Pittsburgh media. The pictures on the hard disk were the tip of the iceberg. He admitted to taking his own photo’s on his friend’s kids with hidden cameras. The quotes from the past president’s are likely phony. He often fabricated his credentials throughout his career to help sell his next gig. Its more commonly referred to as fraud, but kiddie porn did him in.
To everyone who is putting forth one defense or another for Mr. Fortino – I know him personally, as he used to be a neighbor of mine. After all the press about his guilty plea, he tried to convince me that he was not a danger to my young children, and that he had
only one picture of a seventeen year old girl” on his laptop. Please! The images on his harddrive included infants as young as 4 months old being RAPED by grown men. If anybody thinks his rights were violated in the obtaining of the info that brought him down, or that his punishment is too harsh, just imagine for a minute being annaly assaulted by someone whose penis is going to tear your guts apart.
Additionally, anyone who feels that Fortino might have been setup unfairly, keep in mind that he forged letters asking for leniency from cops, the mother of his illegitimate infant daughter (a scary thought in and of itself), and – most abysmal of all – from the father of one of the little girls Fortino videotaped changing clothes on his boat. Does this really sound like someone who doesn’t deserve to be removed from our midst for a long long time? Treatment can occur and offenders can learn to manage their behavior, but Fortino does not seem inclined to make any but the most superficial gestures toward conforming to what might be called basic human decency (individual preferences and interests notwithstanding). Please don’t tell me that Michael Fortino is now being treated unfairly, because if he hadn’t been caught, chances are good that he would have found a way to get to my children too. That’s just how sex offenders tend to work.