AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court will hear later this month the appeal of a former Bangor-area disc jockey convicted of having child pornography on his computer.
Dana Wilson, 65, was sentenced in August 2014 at the Penobscot Judicial Center to 2½ years in prison with all but nine months suspended for possession of sexually explicit material. He was was sentenced to four years of probation.
Wilson is free on bail and living in Florida with his aging parents while the appeal is pending, according to a previously published report.
The case that led to the charges against Wilson began when Brewer police Sgt. Jay Munson went to Wilson’s home on Feb. 14, 2011, after learning from the group Internet Crimes Against Children that someone with an IP address at the home where Wilson lived had received a video known to portray child pornography, according to testimony at his jury-waived trial in June 2014.
Wilson’s computers were seized, and child pornography was found on both of them, Superior Court Justice Ann Murray concluded.
Jamesa Drake, the Auburn attorney handling Wilson’s appeal, argued in her brief in the appeal that the evidence presented by Michael Roberts, deputy district attorney for Penobscot County, was insufficient to convict him. Drake said that the title and file path of videos known to contain child pornography were found on one of Wilson’s computers.
“These letters and numbers — not videos or images — exist because someone double clicked on a file and began to download its contents,” Drake wrote. “As that download was happening, the person previewed the material. But then — and this is the important part — the person decided to stop the download before it had completely finished and thereafter lost the ability to access that file without downloading it anew.”
The attorney also argued that the state failed to prove Wilson downloaded two deleted videos that depicted child pornography on a second laptop. Wilson’s trial attorney, Hunter Tzovarras of Bangor, unsuccessfully argued that Wilson’s adult son downloaded the material on both computers. The son denied using his father’s computers.
Tracy Collins, the assistant district attorney who is handling the appeal for the district attorney’s office, said in her brief that child pornography had been downloaded and deleted on both computers.
“ This pattern — downloading, watching, then deleting — makes sense in an age where penalties for possession of sexually explicit materials are steep and temporary possession, using high-speed Internet and file-sharing programs is quick and easy,” Collins wrote. “Mr. Wilson himself told investigators that he had seen child pornography on his laptops but that others had sent it to him; forensic analysts in this case established that that simply is not possible, and a person would have to take a series of active steps to acquire this material on his computer.”
Collins also said that the volume of child pornography files, estimated at 1,200, was “indicative of an intentional pattern and an absence of mistake. Viewing this evidence in the light most reasonable to the state, the judge reasonably concluded that Mr. Wilson committed possession of sexually explicit materials.”
The supreme court justices will hear the appeal on Sept. 16 at the Kennebec County Courthouse. There is no timetable under which the justices must issue an opinion after hearing oral arguments. If Wilson were to lose the appeal, he would have to report to the Penobscot County Jail to begin serving his sentence three days after his lawyer was informed of the court’s decision.