Monday, November 24th, 2008...9:21 am

Classroom porn was school’s problem, but teacher pays with job

Linebreak

Every day there are amazing miscarriages of justice, enough for a fascinating TV spinoff, “No Law & Order.”

This is one of those stories.

The case of Julie Amero finally ended in crazy Connecticut Friday with the state dropping four felony pornography charges.

In exchange, Amero agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. She probably shouldn’t have even done that but the case has taken a toll on her health and she just wanted it over. She also had to surrender her teaching license, which is an outrage.

“Oh honey, it’s over. I feel wonderful,” Amero, 41, said a few minutes after accepting the deal, according to the Hartford Courant. “The Norwich police made a mistake. It was proven. That makes me feel like I’m on top of the world.”

What was Amero arrested for? Allowing teenage students to momentarily view “pop-up” pornography on her classroom computer given her by the school.

The only problem was it wasn’t her porn.

According to computer experts, Amero’s computer had been infected by spyware which had taken control of the hard drive and it was the Norwich school system which had failed to properly update the porn-blocking software.

“She did not go out searching for porn. She was just stumbling around. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing,” said Alex Eckelberry, a computer software exec who was one of many computer experts who volunteered to assist Amero.

“All of our forensic investigators felt it was a complete miscarriage. It was clear she was absolutely innocent,” he said. “The mistakes and misinformation that occurred in that courtroom were astounding.”

Among them was the state’s resistance to doing a forensic examination on the hard drive and their reliance on the testimony of a detective who was not a computer expert.

Stubborn cusses that they are in Connecticut, New London County State’s Attorney Michael Regan told the Courant on Friday the state remained convinced Amero was guilty and was prepared to again go to trial.

“I have no regrets. Things took a course that was unplanned. Unfortunately the computer wasn’t examined properly by the Norwich police,” Regan said.

“For some reason this case caught the media’s attention,” Regan said.

Weird how ruining a substitute teacher’s life over bullshit can do that.

 

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