Controversy surrounds the case of substitute teacher Julie Amero, accused of exposing her 7th grade students to an endless barrage of porn in October 2004. According to the Norwich Bulletin, Amero was convicted on "four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child." Her sentencing is set for March 2nd. The maximum penalty for each individual charge is ten years imprisonment thus Amero could face as much as 40 years in prison (though such an extreme sentence seems highly unlikely).
Critics of the verdict contend that Amero is herself a victim - besieged by adware that dished up porn in an endless loop of pop-ups that, according to Amero, "never went away". But while such a defense is certainly plausible, there are a couple of discrepancies that call that defense into question:
- Originally, Amero claimed it was the students who had accessed the pornography sites. Only later did the defense adopt the 'adware made me do it' claim.
- It also appears that not only was Amero aware of the pornography being displayed on her PC, she was also aware that students were able to see it. According to one student's testimony, Amero "physically reached up and pushed his face away from her computer when she noticed him looking at the computer screen."
But perhaps the biggest question mark punctuating the case is why Amero didn't simply turn off or unplug the PC. When posed this question by the prosecution, Amero did not respond. Instead, according to student testimony, Amero remained seated at the porn-producing computer throughout the two-hour class period.
Recommended Reading: Amero Case About Law, Not Adware
I have seen this occur on client’s PCs. Their reaction was much hers. After awhile, they simply ignored the smut flow.
The case should be about facts, not opinions on how someone deals with adversity. Was the PC infected, with adware that produced the porn, as claimed? Is it reproducible? If the answer is yes, then there should be reasonable doubt (as to intent, anyway). That may not fully release her from the responsibility to protect the children, under some other statute, however.
Is it possible? Yes. I have seen it.
(Very difficult to get rid of, too.)
The existance of adware and vicious neverending pop-up loops were well known by 2004. The administrations failure to block porn web sites with a router and install pop-up blockers to “School PC’s” is the criminal element. Nobody should expected to update and fix a tool provided by one’s employer before using it.
The “Recomended reading” link is lame as well. The proof standard in all cases in criminal court is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” It need to be met on every element of the criminal statute in question. The fact the prosecutor and judge blocked evidence regarding adware from being entered into court is important. It cuts directly against the “Willful” and “Unlawful” mense rea element of the crime in question. It doesn’t matter who initiated the porn pop up loop. If the teacher in question did not “willfully” show porn to the students because it came up via malware on an infected computer and due to panic she was not able to think clearly enough to shut the thing off then the state has not met it’s burdon of proof.
Mary now has some further thoughts on the Julie Amero case. Please read more before jumping to conclusions.
http://antivirus.about.com/b/a/257797.htm
Thanks Mary!
The evidence was disallowed because the attorney did not follow court procedures and submit it pretrial. If the jury convicted because they believe she introduced the pop-ups, that would be very bad, but again – the fault there lies with her attorney. It’s not clear to me that the jury decided based on that, or if they based it on the fact that she did nothing. The article includes a link to jury instructions that would have been provided in a Connecticut court, for those particular charges. The definitions of willful and unlawful used in those instructions don’t pertain (necessarily) to intentional acts, but also (specifically) for failing to protect when something (bad) does happen.
If you read those instructions, it doesn’t seem that the how or who of the adware introduction (assuming there was any) would make a difference in the outcome.
If she intended to harm the morals of the children why did she push them away or block their view? Why did she inform her superiors at the school about the problem if she willfully intented to harm the childrens morals? She was also under instructions to not turn off the computer, the school was neglegent in provided safe internet use by having security systems to block out the problem, if you cannot prove that she clicked on porn (which you can’t)she is innocent, also the school had a history of porn related incidents involving students, This is a very sad story about a poor women being thrown to the gallows by ignorance and hysteria. Ignorance on her defense attorney, ignorance of the investigationation,
ignorance on the juries part, and hysteria by the parents jury and judge. Ages 12-17 access the most porn of any demographic, shame on the school for not taking responsiblity for their own internet systems, the real “damaging morale” to children is the example of the school adminstrators who allow this women to be burned at the stake for their own neglegence. Shame full,
It’s amazing how unbalanced justice truely is. They are going to fry this teacher and yet the other week its reported that a repeat offender felon convicted of having sex with an eight year old girl gets six months probation. Let’s not forget the five foot two man convicted of sexual molestation of a 12 year old girl who got probaton because the judge was more concerned about his well bing in prison than punishment for the crime. Whatever…
Alex Eckelberry has been covering this story on his blog at Sunbelt. From what I have read there, I believe Julie Amero has been the victim of a miscarriage of Justice, and that responsibility for what happened lies with the school. Julie Amero deserves to have the full facts of the case put forward at her appeal by a good lawyer. I’m convinced that the verdict will be overturned, and that Julie will go on to win a large compensation payment for what she has been put through.
In response to the points made here:
1) Julie Amero was not familiar with computers: if pop-ups appeared after students had been using the computer, she might reasonably assume that students had been accessing pornographic site. We now know that pop-ups to pornographic sites can occur because of spyware which exploits browser vulnerabilities to install itself from very innocent looking sites. The forensic analysis of the computer ruled inadmissible in court (published on the Sunbelt blog) would have revealed that the computer had been used to view an innocent-looking web page which contained a malicious script which installed spyware which in turn produced pop-ups for pornographic sites. Julie would have no way of knowing this, and in her ignorance would have assumed as the court apparently did that the only way to get pornographic pop-ups is to go surfing for porn.
2) The impression given is that Julie was viewing porn and the students happened to catch sight of what she was doing, and ‘remained seated at the porn-producing computer throughout the two-hour class period’. This is contradicted by the facts of the story as I have read them elsewhere, the forensic analysis of the computer, and the court report itself.
The court report quoted says only that ‘Amero remained at her desk during the entire time in class and recalled no one else at the computer’. Reports I have read state that this was a class computer, not the teacher’s personal computer. The assumption that Julie was sitting at the computer cannot be made. It may well not have been on her desk at all.
The implication from the title of this story that Julie may have been a ‘porn surfer’ is alos contradicted by the forensic evidence. Apparently the only images recovered from the computer were of the 15Kb size associated with porn pop-ups.
The implication made here is that Julie was surfing porn on ‘her’ computer and pushed students away when they tried to look. The facts of the case seem to suggest that pornographic pop-ups appeared on a class computer, Julie tried to prevent students looking at the images, reported them to the school administrators.
Why didn’t Julie turn off the computer? Because it was a computer in the corner of the room displaying inch-wide images indiscernible from more than a few feet way and she’d been told not to turn it off. Why didn’t school staff come and help her out if it was such a serious occurrence? Why didn’t the school provide up-to-date computer software less vulnerable to spyware, anti-spyware software or content filtering? These seem to be more relevant questions.
There seems to be plenty of evidence that Julie’s computer was infected by pop-up producing spyware as a result of student’s browsing habits and a lack of secure software, enough anyway to make an appeal likely to succeed. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence to accuse her of porn surfing in class time. Unfortunately the ‘no smoke without fire’ argument will likely follow her for the rest of her career, which is why I hope she gets a good lawyer and sues the school for every penny they have.
I deal with adware/spyware/malware on an almost daily basis. I’ve heard of people throwing perfectly good PCs away because they can’t get rid of the porn pop-ups. I’ve cleaned this crap off of a distressed minister’s machine, and a number of very straight-laced people’s machines, who were at wit’s end trying to get this stuff off their hard drives. After a while, they simply refuse to turn on their machines.
One infection was so bad I had to take the hard drive out of the user’s PC, slave it to another system as a data drive, and clean it from the system drive. This stuff is a real b*tch to clean, even if you know what you are doing. Take the harried IT guy from the school district, who is likely the “computer smart” teacher, and give him 100 PCs to manage, on top of his classload and you can begin to see how easily this stuff can get out of hand.
You don’t even have to surf the web to get hit. Just turn on your PC and connect to the internet. If you don’t have decent updated firewall, adware/spyware/script blocker suites, the latest Microsoft updates, and antivirus software installed, your PC will be infected in less than an hour, if you are on a broadband connection.
Is the school responsible for keeping their PCs protected? Technically, yes, but to adequately protect a PC from casual surfers requires several programs regularly updated to provide any kind of minimal protection. There isn’t likely enough technical expertise in the entire school district to protect these machines.
I run several protective programs on my PC, yet I still find an occasional spyware infection on my box, despite my best efforts. I constantly test and scan with various antispyware products, as one lone professional antispyware product can only catch 70% of the infections out there at best. Free/shareware versions only get about 40% of them. Given limited education budgets, what do you think these people used?
I don’t think there is a web connected PC out there that is 100% clean. Spyware/adware/malware comes out faster than people can catch them. Take any PC and run Counterspy, Webroot SpySweeper, and PC Tools’ Spyware Doctor, in succession on it. The results might scare you.
What do I use? I use the BlackICE firewall, JavaCoolSoftware’s SpywareGuard and Spyware Blaster, Counterspy, SpyBot S&D’s immunization feature, McAfee antivirus, and Guardwall pop-up/script blocker. I keep them constantly updated too. This gives me the minimum of safety, while still giving me a decent amount of performance. I could and should run more, but I’m lazy.
Is the teacher guilty of being a technophobe newbie? Probably. Of being a porn surfing junkie? That is very debatable, and not adequately proven yet. I tend to give the girl the benefit of the doubt, until proven guilty by all the facts.
I have found myself in a similar situation at my workplace. While surfing (during my lunch break, of course) for websites on “curly hair styles”, I clicked on several URLs which all sounded legit, but one led me directly to a porn website. I was stunned while my deskmate couldn’t stop laughing. Luckily we were the only two to actually see the explicit result. Fortunately it seems my employer does not track our web surfing or I might have been in quite a pickle. At worst I would have just been fired. Would not want to be in Ms. Amero’s shoes.
Good point made earlier about convicted pedophiles serving less times for harsher crimes than that of which she has been accused.
I hope she will be exonerated, but what damage has already been done?
Based on what I have read, I would love to see the actual report of evidence presented at trial. I do not fault the police officer, he did what he was trained to do by the Bureau. This case does sicken me to think an innocent woman may be going to jail because the prosecutor failed to allow evidence to be presented that would clear Ms. Amaro of these ridiculous charges. One big very important question is what is Julie Amaro’s knowledge of computers? Does she even know how to turn off the monitor – I know one would think so but does she? She was told by Mr. Napp under no circumstance turn off the computer… well she listened and we all see the results.
I have an Aunt who has no idea how to turn on a computer, my Uncle would turn it on and off for her every day. When he passed away she said she had no idea what to do with his computer, it had been running since he passed away in August of 2006, it was now January 2007. She said she was afraid to press any buttons for fear of breaking the computer… lets face it, some people are totally computer illiterate but that does not make them a criminal.
I also believe there were some mistakes that were made, I believe the problem is the evidence was not investigated thoroughly enough with more then one forensic software program. There are several things that should have been addressed: 1). Was a distinction made between Pop-ups and actual downloads by the user? 2). Did the school maintain any network logs (backup tapes) and if so, were they reviewed to see if these items only appear when Ms. Amaro is present or do they appear when Mr. Napp is in the classroom on other days? 3). Is there other evidence to illustrate a pattern of her Internet activities and interests? 4). Is it possible that while she was out of the room a student accessed a porn site and caused the pop-ups to begin? 5). Was her AOL email account subpoena for review? 6). Did she email any items of porn to anyone such as her husband, even so porn is not a crime but for purposes of proving her interest or lack of, this should have been reviewed. 7). Was there a home computer and did it contain any of the same sites of porn? 8). Did she bookmark any of the items of her alleged interest? Simply reading a registry and reading/reviewing someone’s Internet activity is not enough to say the person committed the crime.
Again the Officer did what he was trained to do by the FBI but if he has been working computer forensics for the pat 7 years there is no excuse for not doing a through review of all the evidence. The other issue may be the forensic program he used, there are various forensic programs on the market, some are even free, but the better ones cost money the bottom line is law enforcement is in the business to serve and protect and to prove or disprove allegations, they are not in the business of sending innocent people to jail for crimes they did not commit.
9) Other questions that come to mind, was every sector reviewed by the officer and was it possible the computer was infected with Malware or is there a pattern of abuse by the substitute teacher (back to network logs). 10). I would of reviewed Mr. Napp’s network logs (if the school kept these on backup tapes) to see what was coming over the school network to Mr. Napp’s IP address on a regular daily basis not just when this incident occurred. 11). Did Ms. Amaro substitute teach in other classrooms and what do these network logs illustrate on the days she substituted? I could go on and on, either way I think further investigation was warranted using more then one forensic tool and gathering more evidence. I would also seriously look at Mr. Napps Internet activity.
I would strongly recommend to the Police Department that they take the money and time and invest in more then just one forensic tool and invest the time to allow the police officers to get more the a few hours of training in forensic media analysis. My classroom time alone was 8 weeks including weekends, over 50+ hours a week… and I have been investigating and performing computer forensics for over 18 years and I still learn new ways to perform media analysis to prove or disprove allegations. The Officer, and maybe he did, should of performed a bit-by-bit analysis of the hard drive versus just a few items of where the evidence may be located so the big question is, was this done?
It is beyond unfortunate that Ms. Amaro is facing prison time for adult porn, classroom or no classroom. She may be the real victim here. If it’s not too late, I think an appeal is warranted and the defense forensic expert should be allowed to present the entire forensic review of the evidence in understandable terms for the jury, not technical terms that will only confuse them. The Prosecutor should also bring in a forensic expert to testify on the States review of the forensic evidence. In a case such as this you can’t just ignore the facts as if they do not exist and destroy a persons life. Just for the record, I too work in law enforcement and investigate child pornography and what I have just read makes me sick to think a judge did not permit evidence to be viewed that could clear a persons name.
Another question is, what was the actual State Crime she was charge with? Thanks to About, I found that answer, but it appears our Ms. Landesman left out one very important element, to prove the Elements Beyond a Reasonable Doubt…#3…(3)That the defendant had the general intent to perform such act.
Under Section 53-21 of Connecticut law, “Any person who . . . wilfully or unlawfully causes or permits any child under the age of sixteen years to be placed in such a situation that the life or limb of such child is endangered, the health of such child is likely to be injured or the morals of such child are likely to be impaired . . . shall be punished. The intent of the statute is to protect the physical health, morals and well-being of children.” The law also provides that “the state must prove the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
(1) that at the time of the incident, the alleged victim was under the age of sixteen years; and
(2) (2) that the defendant willfully or unlawfully caused or permitted the victim to be placed in a situation that endangered the child’s life or limb, or was likely to injure his health or impair his morals.”
As reported by Mary Landesman, but she failed to include the last element – and that is, “That the defendant had the general intent to perform such act.”
Tell me how Ms. Amaro had the “General Intent to perform such act.” Ms. Amaro did not wake up in the morning and say, I think I will put adult porn on the computer in the classroom today so all the kids can see it…, So how were all the elements met to find her quilty? The answer is simple, they were not this case needs to be called as a mistrial.
This woman needs to appeal.
The statement you are quoting comes from a different section of the penal code dealing with physical contact and does not pertain to Amero’s charges.
So what should of been posted in your commentary was Part I of § 53-21 (a) (1):? Either way, I have investigated cases where pedophiles who have molested children go to jail for less time then this woman is looking at. This case makes the justice system look like a bunch of head hunters. Its a total shame the system has come to this, unless of course there is Other information that is not being provided in the blogs… there has to be more to this story for a woman to be facing 40 years for such a minor issue that could have been avoided had the school system installed the proper software with updates. I am just amazed that people that kill other people do not get as much time as Ms. Amero is facing… honestly I think she should not face any time and should have her job reinstated because SHE was not the one that allowed the software to expire causing popups to intrude on her system… It looks like a fall guy for the school board. Shame.
Regarding point 2), the trial transcripts now give a clear picture of what happened that day. The computer was the teacher’s computer. It was positioned at 90 degrees to the class, and in this position was barely visible to the class. When Julie noticed the pornography, she turned the screen away from the class, so no students would be able to see it. Unfortunately, the students had got wind of what was happening, and made excuses to approach the front of the classroom so that they would be able to see what was on the screen- it was at this point that Julie took action to prevent students seeing the screen.
The only children who saw that screen where ones who knew what was on the screen and wanted to see it for themselves.
By remaining seated in front of the computer, Julie prevented students from seeing the screen.
If the defence’s forensic examination of the computer is confirmed, and the porn was caused by adware, it seems a harsh punishment for Julie for being unable to find the power button on a monitor.
You call your self an computer expert in the field of anti virus.
The lady in question here is a computer novice. For most novices the first thing they will try is to close the pop ups which lead to more pop up opening. Lack of quick thinking cannot be a crime.
Why is the school not being held responsible for having out dated software and hardware.
First, I would like to say I agree with FEB 14th posting by “Suzanne.”
I have been a School Librarian Media Specialist for over 20 years in four different schools in three different states.
First, I would like to share an experience one of my first years as a teacher/librarian in another state. A Playboy Magazine showed up hidden inside a US News and World Report magazine after a SR Class Meeting in the Library, when I talked to the Administrator about it, he said, oh, that’s what boys do. And when we had a brand new Health Encyclopedia, name DOCTOR’S ANSWERS, A FAMILY MEDICAL HEALTH ENCYCLOPEDIA and kids started checking it out, the Adminstrator told me that “The only reason boys go to a library is to look up those forbidden things.”
That said, students are curious. The internet is a wild west of data. Much of it good, some of it not appropriate. Yes, we as teachers need to moderate and protect.
I believe that is what Julie Amero tried to do. I believe she tried to close windows. I believe she blocked students views at all means she felt she had. She should not be persecuted for being a techno-phobe and not knowing she could have turned off the monitor.
I have had a computer with internet access in the School for about 15 years and at home for over 20 years. I have a printer that is on a school network for the last 8 years, so anyone from anywhere in the School can print to my Library Printer.
I cannot believe this PERSECUTION is still going on.
SPYWARE/ADWARE/POPUPS/VIRUSES all exist. Windows 98 was known for being easily infested. In 2003, our Computer Network staff reported that were removing all WIN 98 from the Network due to the inability to efficiently filter and protect them. Yet, we still had a Classroom which had some WIN 98 PCs running in one of our technology education classrooms.
One and a half years ago, 4 images printed out in the Library from a Computer in that technology lab. I was able to track down the source because we require the Library Printer to print out a cover sheet identifying the name of the person printing. It turned out a student, not even in the Library, was supposedly printing out a picture of a Woodworking Box for his Woodworking class and his teacher had let him go into their lab without directly standing over him. When we further investigated, the student denied it and half admitted it but lied to his parents who were very religious, telling them it was another boy he let use his ID/Logon, yet he was the only student in that room, it printed from his ID and he just kept telling his teacher “The Printer in the Technology Lab wasn’t printing.” We reported it immediately. We checked on the other boy who was not near a computer during the entire period when it printed out with the TIME of the print job. So, we know it was definitely him. We phoned the parents. We had the School Computer Coordinator check it. It happened. It was over.
Two years before, the same students older sibling was caught on a school computer trying to pull up inappropriate pictures. He was blocked from having internet access for 6 months. When I brought it to an administrator’s attention, he said oh, Boys will be boys, you are probably just being prudish and it probably isn’t that bad. Another administrator called in three of us to say he wanted witnesses while he followed up on my report and he was just verifying the website and when he pulled up the website, I was vindicated that it was inappropriate.
5 or six years ago, I had two very different incidents. A 16 yr. old girl was searching for her Science or Psychology assignment on mind dysfunctional maladies, etc. Her science teacher had told her to go search a term on the computer. The term was “masochism” or one of it’s versions. The teacher had no idea what it would do. He teacher innocently thought it would bring up dictionary or encyclopedia definitions. Obviously it did not and instead brought up a lot of inappropriate images. The girl immediately put her notebook over the computer and came up to the Library desk to and was visibly upset and was babbling, saying “I didn’t do it! I was just doing my assignment.” I later had a talk with the teacher to explain you can’t just let a student go on the internet for something like that unless you give them a specific website like a HEALTH ENCYCLOPEDIA OR DATABASE. The other instance, A boy from another country who had been in US for two or three years, kept being asked to get off the computers. He was making others feel uncomfortable around him when he was on the Computer in the Library. It was discovered he searched “women” and “wrestling” and inappropriate pictures were there.
My point, I don’t know a SCHOOL in the WORLD that has internet access that would not have some INAPPROPRIATE INFORMATION/IMAGES or CRAP on their PCs if you searched them in the same way the Police in Norwich searched that PC.
FACTS: POP UPS from MALWARE do pop up and CAN TAKE OVER YOUR PC. The BAD GUYS are always finding ways to get around the FILTERS.
If you don’t believe it, just ask a computer repair or support person.
My 30-something brother, who lives in Norwich, phoned me two years ago saying something took over his PC and he couldn’t do a single thing without multiple pop-ups. He usually goes to online gaming websites for FANTASY FOOTBALL and the like. He must have been infected at some site. So, he couldn’t even access his email. We had to help him CLEAN HIS PC from the MALWARE by unhooking it from internet and using multiple programs and going into DOS even to do some of it.
And as for Julie Amero’s case. I can’t see after all she has been put through that there will ever be justice for her.
It would only be JUSTICE if someone charged every one who accused her and every administrator in that school district and the prosecutor and “SUPPOSED COMPUTER EXPERT” who misled the JURY with the exact same charges that she was charged with. They all were ill-informed. They started a witch-hunt and got caught up in the FRENZY. EVERY SINGLE ONE SHOULD HAVE TO PROVIDE A FORMAL PUBLIC APOLOGY. EVERY ONE SHOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR FULL PAGE ADDS IN EVERY NEWSPAPER IN THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT APOLOGIZING AND DECLARING THAT THERE WERE MISTAKES AND SHE IS INNOCENT.
The SCHOOL DISTRICT should be PROSECUTED for NOT PROTECTING EVERYONE IN THE SCHOOL PROPERLY.
JULIE should be reimbursed for her SUFFERING, although at this point, there is no amount that can give her back the last two years.
I can only say, twice in the last three years I have been interviewed for a JURY. I would be willing to say I probably would have been EXCUSED or NOT SELECTED because I would have known too much about what really happens on computers and I would have questioned the supposed EXPERTS testimony because I have witnessed it all.
I would also like to note that our LEGAL SYSTEM SEEMS TO BE A DINOSAUR and needs to catch up with technology themselves. I myself received jury duty letters about 5 times in the last two years. Each time, I would mail in my certificate showing I had served for several weeks in 2005 on a Criminal Trial. Each time I would still get a final notice telling me that nothing had been received and I had to show up. Most of the times I had to call and go through several people and give my juror numbers and finally be relieved. The last time, I was never able to speak to a person, so I had to just showed up and serve a day. I was told that the JURY DUTY system has been a paper and pencil system with only two or three people managing it so these things happen. I have been told that they are trying out a new computer system to prevent duplication, etc. I hope they get it right and learn about the technology.
I hope the system sees how messed up everything is. I hope the system and everyone gets a clue. It isn’t easy to teach, or be a substitute teacher.
If I were a substitute in EASTERN CT, I think I might re-think where I substitute. A school district should be held responsible for it’s computer maintenance and filters and protection.
I don’t know how Norwich will continue to have substitutes if they are in danger of being persecuted for the district’s shortcomings like this example of injustice.