COA upholds child exploitation convictions

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The Indiana Court of Appeals found that the state presented sufficient evidence to support a Marion County man’s five convictions of child exploitation.

Anthony Browning appealed his Class C felony convictions, arguing the state didn’t provide sufficient evidence to show he knowingly disseminated child pornography. An Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department detective conducted an Internet investigation using a file-sharing program looking for people who possess and share child pornography. Based on an IP address and Global Unique Identifier, police believed Browning was sharing these files. A search by police of his laptop showed the GUID connected to the suspicious files matched the GUID on Browning’s laptop.

Browning told police that he had downloaded pornography through the file-sharing service, but he would delete any child pornography.

In Anthony W. Browning v. State of Indiana, 49A05-1110-CR-540, the judges pointed to Browning’s statement to police to support his conviction. Even if Browning didn’t open and view the files once they were downloaded, their filenames indicated they were photos of children. Also, because he kept them in a folder to share with other users, he should have known there was a high probability others would download the pictures, Chief Judge Margret Robb wrote.

 

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