WriterDom
Good to the last drop
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2000
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Man sent to prison for tales of child sex, torture
07/05/01
COLUMBUS - A man who wrote in his journal fictitious tales of sexually abusing and torturing children has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
A civil-rights lawyer questioned the prosecution of Brian Dalton, saying the case has free-speech implications.
"What you're saying is somebody can't, in essence, confess their fantasy into a personal journal for fear they have socially unacceptable fantasies, then ultimately they end up getting prosecuted," said Benson Wolman, a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Ohio.
"This is the only case that I know of where we are talking about a journal - just written words. It surprises and offends me that an action should be brought based on a journal," he said.
Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien called the case a "breakthrough" in the battle against child pornography.
Dalton, 22, of Columbus, was charged with pandering obscenity involving a minor after his probation officer found the journal during a routine search of his home. He was on probation from a 1998 pandering conviction involving photographs of child pornography.
The 14-page journal contains the names and ages - 10 and 11 - of three children who had been placed in a cage in a basement. It details how the children were sexually molested and tortured.
The contents were so disturbing that members of a grand jury asked a detective to stop reading after about two pages, said Christian Domis, an assistant county prosecutor.
"It was seriously the most disturbing thing I ever read," Domis said. "There was a woman on the grand jury who was crying."
Dalton pleaded guilty, and prosecutors, in exchange, dropped a second pandering charge.
"I know what I wrote was disturbing," he told Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Nodine Miller at his sentencing Tuesday. "Over the past few months, I looked back at it and realized it was not something I could do. I don't know how I imagined to write anything like that."
Prosecutors said police at first were concerned that the stories were real. However, Dalton said they were fictitious, and there was no evidence to the contrary, Domis said.
The indictment accused Dalton of creating, reproducing or publishing obscene material involving a minor.
Wolman said he cannot recall an obscenity case involving "mere words that were not disseminated." Dalton said he never intended for anyone else to read the journal.
"It is just this kind of thing, I think, that is a misapplication of what the law intends," Wolman said.
Dalton would have faced up to 16 years in prison if convicted of both charges.
"The law hasn't really been challenged and he would have had the opportunity to do that," defense attorney Isabella Dixon said. "But the cost to him is a lot of time in jail to challenge it."
07/05/01
COLUMBUS - A man who wrote in his journal fictitious tales of sexually abusing and torturing children has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
A civil-rights lawyer questioned the prosecution of Brian Dalton, saying the case has free-speech implications.
"What you're saying is somebody can't, in essence, confess their fantasy into a personal journal for fear they have socially unacceptable fantasies, then ultimately they end up getting prosecuted," said Benson Wolman, a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Ohio.
"This is the only case that I know of where we are talking about a journal - just written words. It surprises and offends me that an action should be brought based on a journal," he said.
Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien called the case a "breakthrough" in the battle against child pornography.
Dalton, 22, of Columbus, was charged with pandering obscenity involving a minor after his probation officer found the journal during a routine search of his home. He was on probation from a 1998 pandering conviction involving photographs of child pornography.
The 14-page journal contains the names and ages - 10 and 11 - of three children who had been placed in a cage in a basement. It details how the children were sexually molested and tortured.
The contents were so disturbing that members of a grand jury asked a detective to stop reading after about two pages, said Christian Domis, an assistant county prosecutor.
"It was seriously the most disturbing thing I ever read," Domis said. "There was a woman on the grand jury who was crying."
Dalton pleaded guilty, and prosecutors, in exchange, dropped a second pandering charge.
"I know what I wrote was disturbing," he told Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Nodine Miller at his sentencing Tuesday. "Over the past few months, I looked back at it and realized it was not something I could do. I don't know how I imagined to write anything like that."
Prosecutors said police at first were concerned that the stories were real. However, Dalton said they were fictitious, and there was no evidence to the contrary, Domis said.
The indictment accused Dalton of creating, reproducing or publishing obscene material involving a minor.
Wolman said he cannot recall an obscenity case involving "mere words that were not disseminated." Dalton said he never intended for anyone else to read the journal.
"It is just this kind of thing, I think, that is a misapplication of what the law intends," Wolman said.
Dalton would have faced up to 16 years in prison if convicted of both charges.
"The law hasn't really been challenged and he would have had the opportunity to do that," defense attorney Isabella Dixon said. "But the cost to him is a lot of time in jail to challenge it."
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