I have been involved with so many criminal sex offense cases…I had something happen to me during a deposition a few weeks back that surprised me (which is hard to do). I had analyzed a hard drive on which the client was accused of possessing contraband pornography. The other side had a somewhat green expert who reported and swore under oath that there were dozens of contraband pictures on this hard drive and that he could PROVE who put them there (OK, I guess he was there during the event). Well, when I reviewed it I found maybe 2 or 3 that were definite and 10 or 12 that were possibly borderline. They were all in Browser cache amongst hundreds of other legal porn files, which means they weren’t purposefully saved by the user or moved anywhere for safekeeping, but were put there by the Operating System during browsing, most likely by pop-ups or redirects.

To make a long story longer the opposing attorney actually asked me…(paraphrasing) Mr. Odenthal, do you think that maybe after all these years of viewing this type of illegal pornography that you have become somewhat immune to it and don’t think it’s illegal when it really is? Hmmm…me thinks it’s probably the other way around. I think the attorney was just so flustered by my professionalism and calm, accurate responses that it appeared I was unaffected by the material (which I said I did not find anyway). This is absolutely not the case and in earlier times I had wished I could have had a couple psych sessions here and there just to help me learn to be a little more thick-skinned about it. I have since learned how to handle it on my own. It’s just a career and you have to take the good with the bad. Sort of like a plumber, most of whose work is clean and easy, but sometimes has to fix a clogged toilet!

But on to the topic of the day, the Sex Offender Registry. In my humble opinion this is the most heinous, life altering, Big Brother ruining your life, unbeleivably bad government program that has ever been conveived in modern days. I know that MANY people will disagree with me on this because “Oh my god I need to know who in my neighborhood is a sex offender so I can keep my kids safe!” First of all, most people don’t know how to look this information up or just don’t do it. Secondly, if they do find a sex offender in their neighborhood what do they do then? THEY TRY TO RUN THEM OUT OF TOWN ON A RAIL.”

Now let’s be clear about my opinion here. If a sex offender is violent, a rapist, a repeater, or has killed  or harmed a child, I think they should be put away, period. But what about the smuck who was caught downloading child porn on the internet either purposefully or accidentally, or the 18 year old with a 16 year old girlfriend, or more recently the case where the high school kids were sending naked pictures of girls to everyone in school on their cell phones. Do we really want to put these people on a Sex Offender Registry with the rest of the really bad offenders? Most of the time it’s a lifetime registration.

I truly believe that this is the witch hunt of the 21st century. What I really think would be good information for me to know is who in my neighborhood is a murderer, a burglar or has committed a home invasion? Why is it that once a murderer or burglar gets out of jail everyone says he has done his time and paid for his crime? Shouldn’t there be a Murderer Registry? A Burglar Registry? A Home Invasion Registry? A Drunk Driver Registry? Is my wife’s life and safety any less important than your child’s? Well, maybe yes a little due to a child’s innocence and helplessness but let’s be realistic. We all protect our kids pretty well these days.

Not only is the Sex Offender Registry unusually cruel punishment to the non-violent offenders, but I must add here that the sentencing for SOME of these crimes is unbelievably harsh. Do you know that in some states there is a mandatory minimum of several years for each contraband picture that is found on a computer? Although the Court may have the discretion to run the sentences concurrently, they usually don’t. So if there are 20 contraband pictures on your computer and you get caught with them, chances are that you will go to state prison for 40-60 years for looking at pictures you’re not supposed to look at or possess that you got off of the internet.

A few words of advice. Don’t ever have Peer to Peer (P2P) programs like Limewire, Kazaa, Bearshare, Shareaza or ANY of the downloading programs on your computer, EVER! Get rid of them if you do. If you must look at porn, buy a magazine. Know what your kids and everyone else who has access to your computer is doing with that thing, because if someone else puts illegal material on your computer, it’s still your computer. Besides that, monitor your kid’s activities closely. If you want to protect them, prevention is still the best way.

Finally, this is probably a pretty controversial post and it may be used against me some day in court. However, these are my opinions being published on my blog. As I have said time and again, I find illegal images of children disgusting and abusive. But let’s think about this. Isn’t this something akin to the drug wars that have been raging against our society for decades? We put away all of the druggies but can’t stop the real offenders, the manufacturers of the drugs. Let’s stop going after any little guy that has a few illegal porn pics on his computers. Go after the real creeps that are actually abusing and violating these children.

Well, here I am in Georgetown, TX about 20 miles north of Austin. I selected this area for a lot of reasons, great weather, beautiful city nearby, on the outskirts and near the hill country. The biggest reason was that it is in the middle of the triangle of big cities like Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. Not much more area than I covered in Wisconsin. I have been here since 7/08. Before I moved I sent out more than 10,000 introductory brochures to attorneys that were in Bar Sections likely to need my services. No response…

As I write this today, I am definitely happy we made the move, however still, all of my work is still coming from Wisconsin where I maintain my original computer forensics business. So off I go, at least once a month, to Wisconsin to work on a cluster of cases needing my attention.

I have started up several businesses in my life and I know how it works. 2 to 3 years to really get established, networking, direct mail, speaking engagements, etc. However here in South Central Texas I am not getting the response I usually expect to get by this time. All of my attempts to get speaking engagements have been thwarted or ignored. Calls and emails go unanswered. My accounts for Texas are empty.

I know that there are more Forensic Experts here, however, my niche practice is so narrow, mostly criminal defense of possession of child pornography and associated matters having to do with computers, that it boggles me. I know from experience and research that most Forensic Experts don’t want to do these types of cases, or can’t because of other affilitations, and also even though there are more Private Investigators here that do Computer Forensics it’s more of an additional service to 5 or 6 other services that have nothing to do with Forensics.

Computer Forensics is all I have done for the past 12 years, and although business is still good for me in other states, I really would like to get on the train ride here! Hmmmm…. I think I need to go national.