For Immediate Release July 1, 2008                                   
Contact: Corey Welford/Jessica Venezia 781-897-8325 (o)                                                                           

Framingham Man Arraigned On Child Pornography Charges

FRAMINGHAM – Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone informed the public today that a Framingham man has been arrested and arraigned on child pornography charges.

Paul Franke, 44, was arraigned today in Framingham District Court on charges of possession of child pornography (2 counts), possession with intent to disseminate child pornography, dissemination of child pornography, possession with intent to disseminate obscene matter (2 counts), and dissemination of obscene matter.  Framingham District Court Judge Paul Healy, Jr. ordered Franke released on his personal recognizance with conditions that he not commit any federal, state, or local crimes, that he not use any computers or other internet-capable devices, that he have no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 16, and that he stay at least 50 yards away from all playgrounds and schools.

Franke’s next court date is August 7, 2008 for a pre-trial conference.

“Children are our most vulnerable victims and we take child pornography cases extremely seriously,” District Attorney Leone said. “Compounding the serious nature of this case is the fact that we believe the defendant has had contact with young children on a regular basis.  The arrest of this defendant is the result of outstanding work by the special investigators in our office’s PACT Unit and Cyber Protection Unit.  We will continue to vigorously investigate and prosecute cases of child exploitation.”

On April 25, 2008, a State Police Officer who is a member of the Massachusetts Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, searched a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network for a digital video file that was known to depict an identified child engaged in sexual activity.  The network returned a list of other P2P users offering to share that file.  The network listed these users by their IP addresses, which is the unique numbers assigned to each user of the Internet.  The Officer then focused his attention on an IP address that he could identify as coming from Massachusetts.

The Officer then made a direct connection with that computer and looked at the list of other files that computer was offering to share.  That list had over 250 entries and contained names of multiple files that appeared to be child pornography.

Based on the information obtained from the ISP address, the Massachusetts State Police then traced the IP address in question back to the defendant’s address and subsequently executed a search warrant. 

On June 30, 2008, a search warrant was applied for and issued out of Framingham District Court for 93 Alexander Street in Framingham.  During the search warrant execution at the defendant’s address, the defendant identified himself as the person in possession of child pornography, admitted to using a P2P network to obtain and/or collect child pornography, and admitted to storing the child pornography, thereby allowing other P2P users to download their own copies of the contraband.  A further onsite preview of the defendant’s computer additionally confirmed that the defendant was storing at least 200 more child pornographic files.

These charges are allegations, and a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The Assistant District Attorney who conducted the arraignment was David Clayton.  

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