Way OT: The Julie Amero case

riredale wrote on 2/22/2007, 10:19 PM
This has absolutely nothing to do with Vegas or video editing.

I was stunned to read about a situation involving a substitute teacher in Connecticut named Julie Amero. For those of you who haven't heard, she was teaching in a classroom a few years ago when somehow the teacher's PC became infected with something and began spewing popups linked to porn sites. Supposedly she had been told to never turn the PC off, so she shifted the screen away from the students and, after seeking help which never came, continued with teaching.

She was arrested and convicted of exposing her students to porn, and on March 2nd she will be sentenced to up to 40 years.

This is all over the Internet. There is some good information here about how a computer consultant was not allowed to go into detail in court as to how the whole thing happened. He also says the school district used to have malware blockers and an antivirus program in the network, but the contracts expired some months earlier.

It's possible this conviction is warranted, but unless I'm missing something, this sounds like an enormous mistake and miscarriage of justice. If so, I hope that not only is the teacher cleared of all convictions but also that she wins a huge settlement from the school district for all the pain and loss of career income this has caused.

If you want to contribute something via PayPal or credit card to help with the considerable legal expenses, you can do that here.

Again, I'm hoping this is not some sort of joke, but given the exposure on the Internet, it appears this is for real. Like the preschool "sex abuse" hysteria 20 years ago or more recently the Duke University rape accusation case, sometimes the wheels of justice jump the tracks.

Comments

craftech wrote on 2/23/2007, 6:10 AM
That's a really interesting case. Most of those who have weighed in on it seem to be favoring the teacher. I know a LOT of teachers who are in many different schools who complain about the IT departments. For the most part even in schools with 2-3000 students there is usually ONE IT person due to budgetary constraints with corners cut that make networks often non-functional or only partly functional for a long time.

The article Riredale referenced in Network Performance Daily describes the findings of W. Herbert Homer a Systems Software Engineer for General Dynamics who examined the PC in the case:

{On October 19, 2004, around 8:00 A.M., Mr. Napp, the class’ regular teacher logged on to the PC because Julie Amero being a substitute teacher did not have her own id and password. It makes sense that Mr. Napp told Julie not to logoff or shut the computer off, for if she did she and the students would not have access to the computer. The initial user continued use of the PC and accessed Tickle.com, cookie.monster.com, addynamics.com, and adrevolver.com all between 8:06:14 - 8:08:03 AM. During the next few moments Julie retrieved her email through AOL.
[Link to porn site] was accessed at 8:14:24 A.M., based upon the hair style images uploaded to the PC we were led to believe that there were students using the computer to search out hair styles. The user went to [link to porn site] at 8:35:27 A.M. The user continued accessing the original hair site and was directed to [linkto porn site]. This site had pornographic links, pop-ups were then initiated by [link to porn site]. There were additional pop-ups by realmedia.com, cnentrport.net, and by 9:20:00 A.M., several java, aspx’s and html scripts were uploaded. A click on the [link to porn site] icon on the [link to porn site] site led to the execution of the [link to porn site] script along with others that contained pornographic links and pop-ups. Once the aforementioned started, it would be very difficult even for an experienced user to extricate themselves from this situation of porn pop-ups and loops.

All of the jpg’s that we looked at in the internet cache folders were of the 5, 6 and 15 kB size, very small images indeed. Normally, when a person goes to a pornographic website they are interested in the larger pictures of greater resolution and those jpgs would be at least 35 kB and larger. We found no evidence of where this kind of surfing was exercised on October 19, 2004.}

He believed that by accessing a website with a similar name to a porn site she was redirected to the porn site and caught in an endless porn loop of POP - UP images not the full sized ones that come from visiting the porn sites directly. He explained that he was NOT ALLOWED to present all of his findings to the jury:

{We asked the prosecution to arrange for the defense to have unfettered access to the internet so that we could reenact the events of October 19, 2004. It was not granted. I went to court with two laptops and a box full of reference material prepared to very clearly illustrate what happened to Julie Amero. But, the prosecution objected because they were not given “full disclosure” of my examination. I was allowed to illustrate two screens, that of the [link to porn site], and [link to porn site] sites.
This was one of the most frustrating experiences of my career, knowing full well that the person is innocent and not being allowed to provide logical proof.

If there is an appeal and the defense is allowed to show the entire results of the forensic examination in front of experienced computer people, including a computer literate judge and prosecutor, Julie Amero will walk out the court room as a free person.

Let this experience stand as a warning to all that use computers in an environment where minors are present. The aforementioned situation can happen to anyone without fail and without notice if there is not adequate firewall, antispyware, antiadware and antivirus protection. That was not provided by the school administration where Julie Amero taught.}

The prosecution wondered why she didn't just pull the plug. I guess the jury wondered that as well.

John
Laurence wrote on 2/23/2007, 6:42 AM
A friend of mine made the mistake of allowing his 14 year old grandson on his studio. My friend called me up a few days later in frustration because he couldn't stop the pop-up porn ads. I went over and we worked on his system for a few hours before giving up and reformatting and reinstalling everything from scratch. We are both pretty computer savey, but evidently not nearly as savey as whoever wrote this code. In any case, with a class full of students, if there was any break whatsoever where the students were in the classroom alone with the computer, it is not hard to see this exact situation happening.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/23/2007, 11:09 AM
The prosecution wondered why she didn't just pull the plug. I guess the jury wondered that as well.

considering that the spread of computer virus's are because "average people" don't bother trying to stop then, why would the jury wonder this? "Melissa" ran rampant because people didn't care. Can we expect a substitute teacher to be any different?

(if a sub teacher in the school *I* worked at just yanked the computers plug out of the wall at the first sign of a problem, they wouldn't work there anymore. That's what IT people are for.)
nolonemo wrote on 2/23/2007, 12:38 PM
I grieve for the teacher, whose life has been ruined by this, whatever the eventual outcome of this (even if she wins, she surely will have used up whatever savings she had defending herself).

However, given the general level of hysteria in this country around sex and children, I am stunned that the teacher didn't hit the off switch or pull the plug at the first sign of porn.

And, Happy Friar, I'd be REAL suprised if ANY teacher got fired because they pulled the plug when porn popped up on a monitor in a classroom. Imagine the reaction if a story that a teacher was fired for turning off a computer that was showing porn hits the local papers....
Spot|DSE wrote on 2/23/2007, 2:14 PM
Just as an aside, many people are taught to never unplug or shut off a computer without going through the interface. Dunno if that's her position...but could have been.
Sad case no matter how you slice it.

There might be a bright side...look at Floyd Landis, who is now pretty well proven innocent, even vindicated. Maybe someone with a more rational mind will get involved with this woman's case.
corug7 wrote on 2/23/2007, 3:13 PM
Don't most monitors have their own power switches?

That aside, it is easy to imagine that someone might become so flustered as to not even think about turning off the monitor, unplug the computer, throw a jacket over it, etc.
Chienworks wrote on 2/23/2007, 3:16 PM
Seems like a sensible thing to do would have been to turn off the monitor. That's not shutting down the computer, and it prevents anything on the display from being seen. That would have satisfied both sides, i think.

In an extreme, i would have called the IT department and told them it was an emergency and that i'd be shutting the computer down myself in 5 minutes if they didn't get there before then, and then given the same message to the administrative office. There are things that are more important than following IT's rules. For example, what if the computer's power supply overheated and caught on fire? Would the IT department be made that someone pulled the plug in that situation?

I'm not saying the teacher is at fault at all. I'm just pointing out for future reference that there are options.
fldave wrote on 2/23/2007, 3:26 PM
What I read a few weeks ago was that she walked out of the room, and when she came back into the classroom she noticed that all these cascading porn pages were propogating. The kids were looking for hot hair styles when she was out of the room, or one student was showing off what they found for the others.

It is a sad and scary thing. My heart goes out for her.
Serena wrote on 2/23/2007, 3:47 PM
Hindsight is a wonderful thing for knowing what someone could have done to minimise harm, as one sees in analysis of any accident. But is that a sound basis for judging actions of someone panicked by an emergency? Sometimes computers hang and won't shutdown by the "start/turnoff" or task manager and I've seen the angst of users when I've decided to force a hard-shut down for reboot. If anyone in this scenario intentionally accessed a porn site, the most likely culprit is a student (not the little innocents of popular belief).
TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/23/2007, 6:16 PM
remember, she's a TEACHER not an IT person. When you're ina car accident & you're safe, is the FIRST thing you do yank the cord off the battery (I do!)? 99.9% of people do not, that's what EMS does.

*WE* know what should of been done. *WE* know how it could of been stopped. But she DID get the kids away & get the monitor so they couldn't view it. Evidence that it was pop ups was on the screen, NOT "hi-res" porn pictures. If she just turned it off the argument would of been "she was covering her tracks." If she delt with it herself the same argument.

Trust me, most teachers do NOT know how to "properly" use/handle a computer, just like most drivers do NOT know how to "properly" use/handle their automobile.

And how come a teacher that SLEEPS with her students gets less then 10 years in prison while one who (according to the prosecution) shows the kids porn gets 40 years?

Teachers are mostly a clique group. If they don't like you, or it's better then "the group/kids" they will find a way to remove the unwanted teacher. When I went to school we had a teacher that was dating a former student of his from a few years prior. He got hassled until he left. Did he do anything wrong? No. Most of the other teachers didn't like that the relatively new guy was FAR more popular among EVERYBODY (students & town) then them & find a reason for him to go.

Could very well be the same thing here: "Yes, i'll get the super/principle & IT dept. right up there!" when it was actually "Hey, did you hear about Mrs. X? She was showing the kids PORN!"
MH_Stevens wrote on 2/23/2007, 7:20 PM
She could have turned the monitor off? She could have gone to the Principal for help? She could have closed the browser? Maybe she was horney? But maybe this is a scam to get contributions. Has anyone verified this with the local judiciary?

fldave wrote on 2/23/2007, 7:43 PM
She closed the browser, all 50+ instances of them. And 50+ more browsers popped up, all with porn.

Most IT people who have been around a while have seen this on unprotected systems. You can't stop them without pulling the plug.

It's not her class. It's not her PC. She's told to not turn off the PC under any circumstances. So she tries to get the students behind the monitor so they can't see it.

The sad thing is that the prosecutor and judge denied all avenues of defense. No experts, etc. She was convicted on speculation.
kdm wrote on 2/23/2007, 7:53 PM
It's easy to understand that a non-computer savvy substitute teacher would be more afraid of "breaking the rules" (don't turn off the PC for any reason, which means "any reason"), than try and figure out a solution she didn't know how to control to begin with.

I think it's sad that the legal system in this country is more concerned with "legal precedent" and appearing to protect children, instead of actually going after the real offenders - the porn industry. Instead an innocent teacher pays the price for a growing lack of moral and ethical reasoning.

This is setting a very scary precedent that will grant "freedom of speech" to anyone for any reason, and then hold bystanders responsible when they can't block that "free speech". The same ruling could be applied to a lot of situations, sending innocent people to prison, and protecting the guilty based on a distorted view of the Constitution.

Imho, the prosecutors and judge should be disbarred permanently and fined for violation of their oath. Something is seriously wrong with our loophole ridden, swiss cheese of a judicial system if valid evidence for the defense can be disallowed simply because the prosecution objects on some half-baked, fabricated grounds. I hope she can eventually sue the state of Connecticut, and the imitation lawyers involved for the price of Greenwich.
MH_Stevens wrote on 2/23/2007, 11:01 PM
I feel we may be judging this with not enough evidence. Why was IT expertise not allowed if it had value to justice? What did the children say? Surly they know if she tried to protecte them or let them be titilated (as frankie Howard would have said). Also, who called the plice and made the charges and why?
craftech wrote on 2/24/2007, 4:57 AM
I feel we may be judging this with not enough evidence
=========
I agree with that 100%. I can also see a jury doing the same, especially when it comes to teachers and the situations they face in schools.

The crusaders in the public (like organized taxpayers associations) make external judgements and assumptions of what it is in their narrow minds things should be like or what school employees SHOULD be doing and know absolutely nothing of what teachers are told (or not told) to do nor the impact of their efforts to "cut costs". All in the name of supposed "oversight".

For the most part the priorities of schools are screwed up and change with external pressure applied to administrators whose job is a political one and who in turn apply the pressure to the teachers with no sound educational justification because there isn't any truthful one.

It is inconsistent, not in the interest of education or the students, yet falls under that same guize to justify it.

We probably would have had to have been there to see exactly what the chain of events were to make a judgement about the teacher. And let's not forget that she was a sub which brings in an entirely different set of circumstances.

John
p@mast3rs wrote on 2/24/2007, 5:43 AM
If the orignal post is entirely accurate, I hope she does become vindicated and compensated heavily.

This just goes back to our country's decline in freedoms. No, i dont think people should be free to expose children to porn but its not as if she manually typed in an address and sought out the porn to show the kids. Its more than that. Its a sad state of affairs that child molestors and rapists get far less time for ACTUAL sex crimes than people who view or distribute porn.

Now I will be the first to codemn all that is porn because of my moral and personal beliefs. Note I said condemn porn, not those that choose to view it. Our society has become so damn political that damn near every individual feels compelled to push their views and opinions on others as if they are "gospel." We have religious groups that believe morailty and faith is what we all MUST live by and those that choose not to be a part of the cult (yes it is a cult) shall be cast out of society with a scarlet "A" or "P" in this matter.

Companies and studios can use sex to help sell their products but are forbidden or frowned upon for the actual selling of sex. Isnt that a double standard? The point I am trying to make is that since the religious groups have waged their wars on all that they feel is unholy, society and the court rooms have felt the need to act politically and condemn all that are accused not all that are actually guilty. Which brings me to my next point.

The justice system is nothing more than a mere myth, a fantasy if you will. In a perfect world, justice would be based on the truth and the truth only. Instead, we have lawyers and prosecutors whose only desire is the big win and not the big truth. Lawyers will lie and do anything to win even if they know the facts support the oppositions case. Justice is only for those that can afford justice. Justice goes to the highest bidder.

This lady, if innocent, is scarred for life. A profession which one assumes she likes and has worked hard for, will be labeled a porner and maybe even a pedophile. While the spammer/pop up guy will be labled a businessman trying to make a buck. Her career is done. No district will hire her ever again. Her career is shot all because she followed directions. Her career is disabled and the stigma that will follow her the remainder of her life is one she cannot escape. If she has children, they will be subjected to the same ridicule. Her life as she once knew it is over.

Justice....not in this world.
farss wrote on 2/24/2007, 6:53 AM
It's certainly is going to encourage people to be become teachers.
And what about the schools duty of care to its employees?

It's a reasonable bet that those kids had seen it all before, depending on the age of the teacher and given her lack of PC awareness she mightn't have, so she might have been the one most wronged by the schools failure to protect both her and the students. And of course most students today are better at hacking PCs than the schools are at blocking access.

Or is this perhaps what it's really all about, the school knew it could be held liable so hides behind it's staff coping a criminal charge.

Bob.
p@mast3rs wrote on 2/24/2007, 7:19 AM
Bob, that is exactly what it sounds like. I know my district has things locked down pretty tight but students manage to use porxy bypasses all the time. I just write them up and let the administration deal with it.

I can also attest that these kids are doing and talking about far worse that what has popped up on those computers. Being the eyes and ears in the classroom, I can definitely see how current generations has less regard for their actions and their bodies. From time to time, you even hear kids discussing their favorite porn sites. Todays youth is in no way any more innocent than the media and the bias parties make them out to be.
riredale wrote on 6/14/2007, 6:54 AM
An update: on June 6 the case was thrown out by the judge. A new trial could be initiated, but the prosecutor has implied that he is not interested in taking this any further.

Two comments:

(1) Usually the Justice System works. So please, no moaning about how the USA is the worst country in the world, etc.

(2) One thing I DO criticize is the fact that the defendant still has to pay her legal costs. I would prefer the "English System," which I understand means that the loser in a trial has to pay the legal fees for both sides. In this way the accused is not screwed financially even if the case is nuts and eventually tossed or won.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/14/2007, 7:43 AM
i don't understand why she has to pay legal costs either, but I assume she can sue for those.

Plus schools can be really shady when they want to be. Just found out me & ~50 other employees were working "illegally" at our school. We were never fingerprinted like we should of been. We were never told we need to be so we never knew. We had to pay $99 to be & got the $$ back a week later, but that still wasn't wise of the school.
Laurence wrote on 6/14/2007, 10:17 AM
That was a really crazy case where she was obviously totally innocent. It's good to see her off the hook.
nolonemo wrote on 6/14/2007, 10:56 AM
She may be off the hook, but I guarantee that the case has ruined her life. It costs a buttload of money to go to trial, and these people didn' t seem to be rich. I'm vitually certain that their retirement has been wiped out and they are deeply in debt. The only place she'll get any legal fees from are well-wishers who send her donations.

If you are ever charged with a major crime, there are two immutable rules of thumb (unless you are very weathly): (1) hire the best lawyer you can afford and (2) your life has been totally screwed whether you are found innocent or guilty.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/14/2007, 6:04 PM
your life has been totally screwed whether you are found innocent or guilty.

that's how the RIAA & other companies bully smaller people/companies. Sad, really. :(

But she should sue for her fees & get her $$ back. It was obviously a waste of a case.
nolonemo wrote on 6/15/2007, 8:58 AM
>>But she should sue for her fees & get her $$ back. It was obviously a waste of a case.<<

Sue who, that's the problem for her.