Dane County, WI — A Dane County
sheriff’s deputy miraculously escaped charges of child pornography,
despite being caught with child pornography, because of a cut and paste
error on a warrant.
In a tragic example of the broken “justice” system, former Dane County sheriff’s deputy Jeffrey C. Hilgers, 43, had seven counts of possession of child pornography dismissed Wednesday. The judge ruled that there was a fatal cut-and-paste error on a search warrant, thereby making the discovery of the illegal images on the deputy’s computers, inadmissible.
According to the report, investigators inadvertently used a paragraph, which stated they were searching for child pornography, instead of one specifying the search was for evidence in an illicit relationship between Hilgers and a woman serving a jail sentence at home on electronic monitoring.
The error was insurmountable, Dane County Circuit Judge John Markson said, so he had to suppress the search warrant along with a subsequent search warrant that was issued after child pornography was initially discovered, which led to the discovery of even more child pornography.
The Wisconsin State Journal reported:
The loophole that allowed Hilgers to walk is almost as staggering as the coincidence of finding child pornography, while accidentally searching for child pornography.
Or is it? Could it be that law enforcement has a higher rate of sexual misconduct than the rest of the population?
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cop-caught-hard-drives-full-child-porn-charged-typo/#CkiYEWV4qeczIOMt.99
In a tragic example of the broken “justice” system, former Dane County sheriff’s deputy Jeffrey C. Hilgers, 43, had seven counts of possession of child pornography dismissed Wednesday. The judge ruled that there was a fatal cut-and-paste error on a search warrant, thereby making the discovery of the illegal images on the deputy’s computers, inadmissible.
According to the report, investigators inadvertently used a paragraph, which stated they were searching for child pornography, instead of one specifying the search was for evidence in an illicit relationship between Hilgers and a woman serving a jail sentence at home on electronic monitoring.
The error was insurmountable, Dane County Circuit Judge John Markson said, so he had to suppress the search warrant along with a subsequent search warrant that was issued after child pornography was initially discovered, which led to the discovery of even more child pornography.
The Wisconsin State Journal reported:
Hilgers was charged in August with sexual assault by correctional staff and seven counts of possessing child pornography. A criminal complaint states that Hilgers and the woman met while she was in jail in 2013 and he was a jail deputy, and that they began dating after meeting again following her placement in a home electronic monitoring program.“I do think that likely what happened was a result of cutting and pasting by using a warrant from a different case that involved child pornography,” Markson said.
Hilgers’ lawyer, Brian Hough, asked that the sexual assault charge be dismissed, but Markson on Wednesday denied the motion.
Markson found, however, that a search warrant used to search Hilgers’ home for evidence of the relationship, along with a second search warrant to examine computers for additional child pornography, had to be suppressed. And with the suppression of those two warrants, the seven counts of child pornography were dismissed.
The loophole that allowed Hilgers to walk is almost as staggering as the coincidence of finding child pornography, while accidentally searching for child pornography.
Or is it? Could it be that law enforcement has a higher rate of sexual misconduct than the rest of the population?
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cop-caught-hard-drives-full-child-porn-charged-typo/#CkiYEWV4qeczIOMt.99
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