Getting caught with child porn pictures on your smartphone or laptop would be a personal disaster almost like being accused of molesting your own children. You would likely lose your job, your friends would abandon you, and your community would turn against you! But what if it wasn’t true? What if the only thing on your computer was something you accidentally downloaded, and now you don’t know what to do!
The term ‘child pornography’ in Michigan, refers to images or recordings of a person who is under the age of 18, and is engaging in sexual behaviors. This could include intercourse, erotic fondling, sadomasochistic abuse, masturbation, passive sexual involvement, sexual excitement, or erotic nudity. Child porn is often called ‘child sexually abusive material‘ in Michigan law.
It’s important to remember that you are allowed to have nude pictures of children in certain circumstances. As a parent, it’s totally okay to have “normal” pictures of your kids running around in the sprinkler out back with no clothes on. Pictures of your kids playing in the bathtub are also okay. If a close friend or family member has sent you a non-erotic picture of their own kids doing something cute or funny that happens to include non-sexual nudity, it’s also usually okay.
However, having pictures of other people’s kids in the nude, is usually a bad idea! Especially when you aren’t the parent, or you don’t have permission to have the picture, or you have several pictures of nude children. Even if the pictures themselves aren’t of children doing anything sexual, the fact that you have them in your possession could be grounds for prosecution!
There could be many ways that a person could accidentally end up with images or videos that count as child pornography on their phone or computer. For example:
- You downloaded a large quantity of information, and the pictures happened to be included without your knowledge.
- You downloaded what you believed to be legal pornography showing people of consensual age, but the “models” were actually underage.
- You stumbled across something on the internet, and in your frantic haste to get away from the site, you pressed the wrong button and accidentally downloaded something illegal.
Once you have child pornography on your computer, it is very difficult to get rid of it. Even deleting files doesn’t usually erase them, but rather encodes them as files that can be written over by other saved data in the future. This means that if you have ever downloaded child pornography onto your phone or computer, it can usually be found and recovered by a forensic computer technician later on.
This means that even if it was an accident, and you never wanted to have the illegal material to begin with and tried to delete it immediately, it would probably remain on your device and you may still get into trouble. Forensic examiners can tell for instance, how many times the photos were viewed, the dates of viewing, how long a time period the images were viewed, etc.
This is why you’ll need a highly skilled and experienced kiddie porn defense attorney on your side! Someone who has handled this type of case many times in the past, and earned successful outcomes for their clients. So if you think you may be in trouble for accidentally downloading child porn, call The Kronzek Firm today at 866 766 5245. We understand, and we can help you with this!