Blogger, Karoli brought to my attention the horrific nightmare experienced by a Connecticut woman named Julie Amero.
Four years ago, while pregnant, Ms. Amero went to work one day as a substitute teacher and left with felony charges against her.
Her crime?
Julie Amero was convicted of four felony counts, each count carrying a maximum of ten years, for exposing school children to pornography.The reality is that Julie, a 40 year–old, pregnant substitute teacher, found herself in a storm of popups and didn’t have any idea as to what was going on, or how to fix the situation.
Yes, you read that correctly. A school computer (which evidently hadn't been updated with anti-virus protection by network administrators in months) suddenly started showing lewd pop-up pornography ads in a classroom full of seventh graders. The substitute teacher didn't know what to do to make them stop, so she was led away in handcuffs and convicted of felony charges carrying a maximum sentence of forty years in prison.
And this is not even to mention that after her very public arrest, the pregnant teacher suffered a miscarriage. Subsequently, Ms. Amero has been hospitalized because of declining health due to stress.
In March 2008 a $2,400 ad appeared in the Hartford Courant which was signed by 28 computer science professors arguing that Ms. Amero could not have controlled the pornographic pop-ups. Trial Detective Mark Lounsbury never checked for the presence of malware.
A number of computer security experts, led by software developer and blogger, Alex Eckelberry noticed serious technical errors were made throughout her trial. Mr. Eckelberry brought together a group of forensic investigators who volunteered to analyze the computer hard drive she was using in the classroom that day and published a report on their findings.
The group's report ultimately caused Julie's conviction to be overturned. Judge Hillary Strackbein overturned the unjust verdict in 2007 and ordered a new trial because of erroneous and false information given during the initial trial.
At that point, when New London County State's Attorney Michael Regan learned his entire case was flawed and Ms. Amero was innocent, he had the power to drop the charges against her. But no, he and the group of computer illiterates who pushed the charges in the first place still pursued a new trial.
The case was pending until November 7th, 2008 -- when he finally forced her to plead guilty to a disorderly conduct misdemeanor, surrender her teaching certificate, and pay a $100 fine -- or face another trial.
Perhaps shows like CSI and others have given us a false sense of security that our public officials have any sort of tech savvy skills whatsoever. Apparently not so in Norwich, Connecticut.
And to top it off, unrepentant prosecutor Michael Regan's view after the fact:
"I have no regrets. Things took a course that was unplanned. Unfortunately the computer wasn't examined properly by the Norwich police," Regan said.
The truth is in fact, he ruined a woman's life over a computer virus. Prosectuor Michael Regan literally took Julie Amero's career from her, took her health, took her right to justice. All presumably to make an example of her, and a name for himself.
Mr. Regan forcing her to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge to stop his relentless harassment of false charges is a ludicrous excuse for "justice."
Not that Michael Regan knows or cares what search engine rankings are, but, hopefully when the name Michael Regan of Norwich Connecticut is searched in the future, Michael Regan's Google profile will reflect exactly what Michael Regan fought so hard for: to make a name for Michael Regan. Heaven knows his pursuit had nothing to due with the rule of law.
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That said, I would never have caved. And after I was found innocent, I would have sued his sorry a$$.
I guess the question is: Where did this porn come from? It wasn't "her" computer..she was subbing in someone else's classroom. What about the regular classroom teacher? And why didn't the district block it? If anyone was negligent it was the district!
As I am a substitute myself, I know how awful things can be. As substitutes we get walked on all the time. This story is not a surprise, but an example of how disrespectful people generally are of us.
Check out my new blog: "Diary of a Substitute Teacher" at blogger.com to read of my trials and tribulations. While none of my experiences are as bad, I do have a few doozies!
WadeMallory
Why didn't she just turn off the monitor or computer? I mean, a hard reset isn't the best thing, but it likely would have prevented any kids seeing smut.
The students were looking up hairstyles, if I remember correctly, or something along those lines, and it was related to whatever was going on in class. They clicked on the wrong link or did whatever keystroke combination or ? that released the porn storm, as we used to call them.
Just goes to show that one doesn't have to have a clue what they're talking about to go into court and pretend they know. The jurors were frightening, too. They believed that grayed links were some sort of proof that Julie had clicked on the porn links.
It's just completely absurd! Yet not funny in the least, since Julie Amero's life is forever changed, and not for the better. In January after Rick Green of the Hartford Courant wrote a post about how he wanted to see her exonerated, she was fired from her job at Home Depot. Why? Because they didn't want a porn-surfing ex-teacher to sully their fine reputation.
Can you believe this stuff? I couldn't make it up!!!!
Justice will be seeing Regan tossed out of public office and Mark Lounsbury chained to a desk. Thank God good guys like Alex Eckelberry and the group of people who literally spent days and nights working on this were able to get this far. She could easily have been retried...
A bit off topic but definitely relevant: I have long felt that there needs to be both an oversight board and professional jury system. The oversight board would be charged with reviewing cases, judges and attorneys to make sure that things like this do not happen; reviewing cases and bringing to light the dealings and politics of the justice system and those that play with people's lives for their own benefit. The board couldn't overturn, just send a case back to trial and report concerns to state bars with their findings. And a professional jury of legally trained people who have an understanding of law to prevent findings based upon emotion or bias. Jurors, too, would be subject to regular review.
as her human rights certainly appear to have been terrribly violated.