Former Web Exec Convicted on Possession of Child Porn

Patrick J. Naughton, former executive vice president of Walt Disney Co.’s Go.com Internet site, was convicted Thursday of possession of child pornography, but not of two more serious charges that accused him of using the Internet to solicit sex from a minor.

The mixed ruling marked the culmination of a high-profile trial that hinged on a novel defense argument that Naughton may have engaged in online sexual fantasies about teenage girls, but never intended to have sex with one.

U.S. District Court Judge Edward Rafeedie declared a mistrial on those two counts after jurors indicated they were hopelessly deadlocked after four days of deliberations.

The result was a setback for both sides in the case, held in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The government failed to win convictions on the two counts at the heart of its case, charges stemming from an Internet sting operation that took seven months. Naughton’s defense could become a model for defendants in hundreds of similar cases around the country.

But the outcome was not the victory Naughton sought either. Even though he escaped conviction on two counts, he still faces up to 10 years in prison for possession of child porn and could face another trial if the government decides to prosecute him again on the unresolved charges.

Naughton, a Seattle resident who has had a stellar career in the high-tech industry, sat stoically with his hands clasped on the defense table as the verdicts were read.

His only visible reaction came a short time later when the court ordered that he be taken into custody. Naughton swallowed hard and seemed stunned as he emptied his pockets, handed a silver watch and cuff links to his brother and allowed U.S. marshals to handcuff him and take him to the Metropolitan Detention Center. Naughton and his attorneys had argued that he should be released until his March 6 sentencing.

Naughton, 34, declined to comment as he was being led away, but his brother, James P. Naughton, said later that the family was in a state of disbelief. “He is not guilty of what he was convicted of,” said James, 40, one of eight Naughton siblings.

James Naughton, who attended the trial, said he has been sending e-mail dispatches of the proceedings to family members. Asked how Patrick was holding up, he said, “He’s a strong man, he’s a Naughton.”

Naughton, a gifted computer programmer, has held top positions at Disney, Infoseek Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc.

He was arrested Sept. 16 at Santa Monica Pier after showing up for what authorities said he expected to be a sexual encounter with a teenage girl. The arrest followed a sting operation in which an FBI agent posed as a 13-year-old girl and corresponded with Naughton in an Internet chat room he frequented called “Dad&DaughterSex.;”

Jurors said they quickly voted to convict Naughton on the child pornography charge, even though the defense argued that the illegal pictures found on Naughton’s laptop computer after his arrest had been placed there without his knowledge.

But jurors remained deeply divided over whether to believe his “fantasy” defense. FBI transcripts showed that Naughton repeatedly propositioned the agent posing as a teenage girl. But his lawyers argued that because people often lie about their age and gender in chat rooms, Naughton never believed he was corresponding with an actual teen and did not really expect to meet one at the pier.

Jorge Hernandez, a 39-year-old computer technician on the jury, said he found that argument plausible: “For me” [the chat room conversations] “sounded like fantasies.”

But a female juror who declined to give her name disagreed: “It wasn’t a fantasy on his part. When you leave a [chat] room and decide to go meet her, it’s no longer fantasy. You’re in the real world.”

In the end, the jury voted 7-5 in favor of convicting Naughton of interstate travel with intent to have sex with a minor. On the second count, which accused Naughton of using the Net to solicit sex from a minor, 6 jurors voted to convict him, 5 to acquit and one was undecided.

In a criminal case, jurors must reach unanimous verdicts. Jurors voted roughly along gender lines, with four of the six women on the panel voting to convict him on all three counts.

Stevie Brown, the foreman of the jury, said tempers were “flaming hot” by midweek, and only one juror changed her opinion over the last three days of deliberations.

But Brown, 35, said a number of jurors had doubts that Naughton was prepared to go through with the sexual encounter. He said that he and other jurors felt that FBI agents arrested Naughton before he had actually propositioned the female undercover agent he met at the pier.

“If the government would have let [the encounter] go a little farther, they would have had a stronger case,” Brown said. “If [Naughton and the agent] would have gone down to the beach and had sex talk, it would have all been on tape because she was wired.”

Brown, an airline employee, said he came away from the case believing that Naughton is “a very intelligent guy,” but also a “sick individual.”

Naughton’s attorneys called the outcome a victory for their client, who has no criminal record. “We are very gratified that [the jury] could not find our client guilty on the two counts the case was about,” said Donald Marks, Naughton’s lead defense attorney. “The child pornography count was an afterthought.”

Naughton’s attorneys indicated they plan to appeal that conviction. The constitutionality of the federal child porn statute is being challenged in federal court. Though he faces up to 10 years in prison, Naughton’s sentence is likely to be considerably shorter because of sentencing guidelines.

Prosecutors have until Jan. 5 to decide whether to retry Naughton on the two unresolved counts.

But Assistant U.S. Atty. Patricia Donahue said she remains convinced of Naughton’s guilt and stressed that the government will continue to pursue similar online sting operations, which until now have been almost foolproof and have surged in popularity with law enforcement agencies nationwide.

“The whole point of these undercover operations is to find people sexually interested in kids and willing to act on it,” Donahue said. “We still think someone who travels and comes down to the pier is willing to act.”

*

Times wire services were used in compiling this report.