Case of Weiwu Zhao - Innocent Old Chinese Guy Got Charged with Child Pornography
"On November 1, 2017, Weiwu Zhao was wrongly convicted of “knowingly possessing” and “knowingly disseminating” the 14 digital child porn files by the jurors in Northampton County Court of Common Pleas, Pennsylvania. Mr. Zhao stated he has NEVER downloaded, uploaded, saved, copied and viewed any child porn files, he has NEVER known any of the alleged 14 child porn files in the target PC tower, and he has NEVER known when and who downloaded, uploaded, saved, copied and viewed any of the alleged 14 child porn files in the target PC tower."
To support this 77 years old Chinese immigrant, Weiwu Zhao, please contact:
Email:forpajustice@gmail.com
Phone: +1 484-373-1579
The following article is about the details of Weiwu Zhao's case:
A New Cybersecurity Threat Looming in the Internet Age
A new threat looms in the Internet age – the threat of improper prosecutions and wrongful convictions related with the DIGITAL child porn files. Everyone is at risk.
In many years, the courts have struck down many federal and state laws aiming for removing or disabling access to child porn sites on internet. It has actually promoted to form an unfair legal system that the unlawful child porn files “lawfully” exist, transit and disseminate on the internet in our country.
These offenses can be committed by hacking which is a relatively easy and usually untraceable way to plant fake information. Around **$600 per job “was in the normal range of what hackers demand for character assassination” **- Professor Paulo Shakarian, the director of the Cyber-Socio Intelligent Systems Laboratory at Arizona State University.
Many wrongful convictions were solely based on electronic evidence, which is extremely vulnerable to inadvertent of intentional modification or destruction. The experts have expressed such concerns:
**“Essentially there is a dark hole of time between impounding and hashing, where contamination could occur ... Some of the issues described herein may be addressed on an individual basis in an effort to improve the body of case law for defense, but others might require more broad attention via explicit tort reform.**” - Rebecca T. Mercuri, Ph.D., Notable Software, Inc;
**“**Electronic evidence is by its nature mutable ... If the government wanted to plant electronic evidence and then lie about it, it would be virtually impossible to prove that it happened.” - Mark Rasch, esq., the former head of U.S. Justice Department's Computer Crime Unit;
- “If something like this [planting digital child porn files] is sponsored by the Russian government, or any government or anyone with sufficient skill, you are not going to be successful. It is terrible.”- Jeffrey Carr, the head of Taia Global, an American cybersecurity company.
- “To say that everything [in a child porn prosecution] is to do with a hard drive is unreasonable. We would never bring a case purely on the basis of what's on the computer.” - Professor Neil Barrett, professor of computer science at Cranfield University, UK.
These charges instantly moves you from “innocent until proven guilty” to “guilty until proven innocent” in jurors’ minds, and jurors may not understand the computer technology well enough to get it right. “Innocent people are getting caught up in the technology. They're swearing they're innocent, and the forensics show that they're innocent. But you get a bad attorney, a bad jury, and you end up convicted. You're called a sex offender over some computer files that weren't yours. I see that happening, and it's frightening.” - computer forensics expert Tami Loehrs.
As a result, many innocent people were prosecuted as a sex offender over some digital child porn files that weren't theirs and meanwhile, seemingly none of ISP companies were ever prosecuted:
Innocent Defendant: Larry Benedict
Year:1994
Place: CANANDAIGUA, New York
Case Introduction: Defendant accepted plea bargain, and the computer expert found the electronic evidence have been tampered with. More information:
https://www.cnet.com/news/electronic-evidence-anchors-porn-case/
Innocent Defendant: Jack
Year: 2002
Place: Fima, Minnesota
Case Introduction: Defendant accepted plea bargain, and the computer expert raised a lot of reasonable doubts. More information:
http://fimafimovich.blogspot.com/2014/10/mitsubishi-abandons-employee.html
Innocent Defendant: Matthew Bandy
State v. Bandy, Maricopa County Superior Court (AZ), Case No. CR2005-014635-001 DT
Year: 2005
Place: Arizona
Case Introduction: Defendant pleaded guilty to three “class 6 undesignated felonies” that were unrelated to the child porn found on his computer. Defendant's family reportedly spent more than $250,000 on his defense. More information:
Innocent Defendant: Michael Fiola
Year: 2007
Place: Massachusetts
Case Introduction:
The charge was eventually dropped, but not before Defendant and his wife had spent $250,000 fighting the case. More information:
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2010/nov/15/child-porn-investigations-may-snare-the-innocent/
Innocent Defendant: Donald Miller
United States v. Miller, 527 F.3d 54 (3d Cir. 2008)
Year: 2008
Place: Pennsylvania
Case Introduction:
The Third Circuit held that even if malicious software or a virus was responsible for downloading or storing illegal content on someone’s computer, the defendant could still be convicted of knowingly possessing child porn. More information:
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2010/nov/15/child-porn-investigations-may-snare-the-innocent/
Innocent Defendant: Nathaniel Solon
United States v. Solon, 596 F.3d 1206 (10th Cir. 2010)
Year: 2009
Place: Wyoming
Case Introduction:
Courts have upheld convictions for possession of child porn despite defenses claiming infection by computer viruses or other malware programs. Solon’s conviction was affirmed by the Tenth Circuit in February 2010. More information:
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2010/nov/15/child-porn-investigations-may-snare-the-innocent/
Innocent Defendant: Andrew Rose
Year: 2010
Place: Franklin County, Missouri
Case Introduction: http://andrewrosefoundation.weebly.com/
**Innocent Defendant: ****Brian Hill **
North Carolina Middle District, United States of America v. Brian David Hill (Docket #15-4057)
Year: 2013
Place: Winston Salem, North Carolina
Case Introduction: Defendant accepted plea bargain, and later he appealed. More information:
https://wearechange.org/case-brian-d-hill/
** **
Innocent Defendant: Weiwu Zhao
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Weiwu Zhao, Case No. CP-48-CR-665-2016
Year: 2015
Place: Easton, PA
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/12/4-15_years_for_child_porn_conv.html
** **
- 77 years-old Weiwu Zhao who does not speak English is an innocent defendant. Defendant, Weiwu Zhao reported obstruction of justice, concealing exculpatory evidence, perjury, and other illegal conducts committed by the state police officer, the state prosecutor and the state judge. On November 1, 2017, Weiwu Zhao was wrongly convicted of “knowingly possessing” and “knowingly disseminating” the 14 digital child porn files by the jurors in Northampton County Court of Common Pleas, Pennsylvania. Mr. Zhao stated he has NEVER downloaded, uploaded, saved, copied and viewed any child porn files, he has NEVER known any of the alleged 14 child porn files in the target PC tower, and he has NEVER known when and who downloaded, uploaded, saved, copied and viewed any of the alleged 14 child porn files in the target PC tower. The defense experts has found many flaws in the police evidence: - Computer security expert Bin Xie, CISSP, CISA has found the “incident” was impossible (See Exhibit C). Tracking remotely child porn files in the state police’s alleged way is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
- Computer forensic expert Steve Simpson, CCE, CISSP, CPTC, CSFA, PMP has found “Mr. Zhao’s computer and network equipment had little to no protection against unauthorized use or intrusion by malicious individuals allowing anyone with physical or online access total control of the computer” (See Exhibit I).
- **Dr. Yong Zhang, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Kutztown University of PA “believe a computer working under such conditions is very vulnerable to malicious hacker attacks” (See Exhibit J). **
- Document forensic expert Jeffery Luber has found the state police fabricated Mr. Zhao’s signature and print name on the receipt of seized property (See Exhibit K).
- Case Background
Mr. Zhao has been married with his wife for 44 years, has no criminal history, has the serious eye diseases. In March 2014, Mr. Zhao came to Northampton County, PA with his wife to visit their daughter and granddaughters. Because Mr. Zhao’s son-in-law abused Mr. Zhao’s daughter and granddaughters who are not related with son-in-law, Mr. Zhao and his wife had to decide to give away everything in where they were comfortable, but give all of their life, stay temporarily in U.S.A to save his daughter and granddaughters. However, it irritated son-in-law’s family. On November 20, 2014, Mr. Zhao’s son-in-law’s family and their friends openly announced:
“Talk about illegal aliens walking all over Americans!! But I must say --- LET THE GAMES BEGIN !!!!!!!!!!!! ... Report them [Mr. Zhao’s family]” (See Exhibit A)
The legal officials who are assigned to this case, are directly connected to the son-in-law’s family as well as that family’s close friends, showing a clear conflict of interest (See Exhibit B).
- Pre-trial Procedures
On April 21, 2015, plenty of heavy armed state and city police officers unlawfully executed a search warrant at Mr. Zhao’s home, and entry was made through the window initially. The police did not bring any interpreter, none of the police officers were Chinese. Trooper James Ford** “grabbed him [Mr. Zhao] by the wrist”, failed to announce Miranda Warnings** to Mr. Zhao and his daughter in a custodial interrogation. On scene, the police did not take any photos, did not present any child porn files, failed to preserve the electronic evidence, and impounded the target PC tower in the living room with the reason of “one child porn file found” in it. Upon the completion of the search warrant, Mr. Zhao’s daughter was given a copy of the search warrant showing on April 20, 2015, Trooper James Ford obtained search warrant for the alleged “incident” -
“on 01/05/2015 ... Cpl GOODYEAR utilized undercover software to query search on the E-Mule network for known SHA1 hash values when he discovered IP address: 65.78.83.141 as a download candidate”.
On December 8, 2015, Northampton County District Attorney, PA falsely accused against Mr. Zhao of “knowingly possessing” and “knowingly disseminating” the digital child porn files (See Exhibit D); at same time, the state police immediately released, through the local media - Morning Call and Express Time, fake news to the public: Mr. Zhao “admitted downloading child pornography”, and they also confused this case with another irrelevant case reported by Microsoft.
On December 20, 2016, Prosecutor Anthony Casola provided a document (See Exhibit E) consisting of two pages which contained a rudimentary list of 7 child porn files names and dates. There was no indication of when the list was composed, who composed it, or how the analysis was performed. There was no Certificate of Authenticity accompanying the document stating that it is even an official record of the computers contents.
On January 4, 2017, Mr. Zhao’s attorney filed a motion to compel the complete computer forensic report, but later it was denied.
On July 20, 2017, Troop James Ford falsified the case “facts” with Mr. Zhao’s son-in-law having a conflict of interest that, Mr. Zhao’s son-in-law only visited Mr. Zhao’s home “when Mr. Zhao’s family first moved” (actually Mr. Zhao’s son-in-law visited Mr. Zhao’s home from September 2014 to December 9, 2015), and Mr. Zhao’s son-in-law “never used” the target computer (Mr. Zhao’s wife and daughter both witnessed he used it for some times).
On August 14, 2017, Prosecutor Laura Majewski sent Mr. Zhao’s attorney an email, informing “The full forensic examination yielded more VIDEOS, which rises to the level of federal jurisdiction, should they decide to take the case”. On August 21, 2017, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri Stephan sent Mr. Zhao a letter, informing he is “a target of a grand jury investigation concerning among others, violations of Title 18, United Stated Code, Section 2252, concerning child exploitation”. Since on September 6, 2017, Mr. Zhao reported via email to to Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri Stephan about the state legal officials’ crimes, he has never gotten reply from her.
On September 27, 2017, on the hearing for Defendant’s omnibus pretrial motion, Prosecutor Laura Majewski introduced the evidence (See Exhibit F) actually from another irrelevant case to falsely charge against Defendant.
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On October 18, 2017, Mr. Zhao filed a motion to compel a complete copy of hard drive, but later it was denied.
** **
On October 20, 2017, Prosecutor Laura Majewski provided a document (See Exhibit G) consisting of three pages which contained a rudimentary list of 14 child porn files names and dates. Again, there was no indication of when the list was composed, who composed it, or how the analysis was performed. Again, there was no Certificate of Authenticity accompanying the document stating that it is even an official record of the computers contents.
On October 26, 2017, court standby attorney Alexander Karam visited Mr. Zhao, telling Judge Sletvold asked him to do stuff [asking Mr. Zhao to take nolo agreement]; Judge Sletvold would hate to see Mr. Zhao to go to trial, Mr. Zhao will get hammered and will be found guilty; Judge Sletvold has indicated that, if Mr. Zhao is found guilty of these charges, she’ll sentence him as most as she can, and he will be sent to state jail far from home, **and he will die in jail. **
On October 27, 2017, Judge Sletvold threatened to Mr. Zhao that, through court interpreter Aixue Wang’s on phone, if Mr. Zhao does not take plea agreement, all of his evidence and witness will not be admissible in the court.
- An Unfair Trial hold October 30, 2017 through November 1, 2017
Judge Sletvold deprived Mr. Zhao’s right to be represented by his private attorney, Mr. Zhao was forced to represent himself Pro Se in front of the enforced trial, but meanwhile, Judge Sletvold also authorized court standby attorney Alexander Karam to represent Mr. Zhao in the trial, although Mr. Zhao objected his representation.
On November 1, 2017, Judge Sletvold had the wrong statement that, she ordered Mr. Zhao to provide his evidence list and witness list not later than five days [before On November 1, 2017]. Actually, Judge Sletvold never entered this order either verbally or in written form, and on October 24, 2017, Mr. Zhao filed his discovery list and 36 exhibits and witness list to the court and DA office.
Judge Sletvold sheltered Prosecutors who concealed the exculpatory evidence: on January 4, 2017, Defendant’s attorney Kevin Santos filed a motion to compel the full computer forensic report, but later it was denied by Judge Sletvold, and on October 18, 2017, Defendant filed a motion to compel a complete copy of hard drive, but later it was denied by Judge Sletvold too.
Judge Sletvold sheltered Trooper James Ford who fabricated Defendant’s print name and signature on the receipt of seized property. On November 1, 2017, Mr. Zhao was going to have his document forensic expert Jeffery Luber testify it, however, Judge Sletvold refused it with the wrong reason that
“There's no issues of handwriting in the case, and you did not give the Commonwealth appropriate discovery on an expert witness”.
Prosecutor Laura Majewski also sheltered Trooper James Ford who fabricated Defendant’s print name and signature on the receipt of seized property, and moreover introduced the fabricated receipt of seized property as evidence in the trial as well as on the hearing for Defendant’s omnibus pretrial motion on Sept 27, 2017. Actually, on October 24, 2017, Defendant filed document forensic expert Jeffery Luber’s report, but it was ignored by the court and DA office.
Judge Sletvold and Prosecutor Laura Majewski sheltered Trooper James Ford who fabricated other evidence (See Exhibit H): on October 24, 2017, Mr. Zhao filed motion to exclude witness Trooper James Ford from the trial, providing a list of police evidence comparison, showing that the contents in a lot of police evidence are not consistent, but it was ignored by the court and DA office. In the trial, Prosecutor Laura Majewski still had Trooper James Ford testify.
The jury candidates were allowed to be known and be selected, not by Mr. Zhao, but by court standby attorney Alexander Karam who actually represented Judge Sletvold. As a result, the jurors were actually selected, not by Mr. Zhao, but by Judge Sletvold, and they intentionally selected all the jurors who do not understand high technology in computer.
Judge Sletvold’s instructions for the jurors were aimed for finding Defendant guilty:
Judge Sletvold emphasized that, the jurors shall decide based on the [Prosecutors’ false] evidence and [Prosecutors’] witnesses’ [false] testimonies presented in the trial (just one party’s information, because all of Defendant’s arguments and requests unfavorable to Judge, Prosecutors or Prosecutors’ witnesses were not be interpreted to the jurors and recorded in transcripts) ;
Judge Sletvold repeatedly emphasized that the jurors shall make an agreement, rather than emphasizing that the jurors shall independently think and decide if many reasonable doubts;
Judge Sletvold instructed the jurors to decide if Defendant is guilty just based on the “unlawful” facts specified by the judge, rather than instructing the jurors to decide if “unlawful” facts are proven and decide if Defendant is guilty.
In the trial, the child porn VIDEOS, especially some of which were never viewed in the target computer, were improperly showed to the jurors. As a result, it improperly moved from ‘innocent until proven guilty” to “guilty until proven innocent” in the jurors' minds.
In the trial, all of Mr. Zhao’s arguments and requests must be approved by court standby attorney Alexander Karam firstly, and then were interpreted to the jurors or recorded in transcripts. All of Mr. Zhao’s arguments and requests unfavorable to Judge, Prosecutors or Prosecutors’ witnesses were not be interpreted to the jurors and recorded in transcripts:
Mr. Zhao requested to confront with Prosecutors’ witness against him;
Mr. Zhao requested to have all of his witnesses, including document forensic expert, computer forensic expert, etc. testify;
Mr. Zhao requested to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor to testify;
Mr. Zhao raised reasonable doubts: the hackers had opportunity to attack the target computer and to plant electronic evidence; since the PC tower was impounded, the computer data have not been protected and thus there has been a risk that the data have been tampered; Prosecutors concealed a complete copy of hard drive and a complete forensic report;
Mr. Zhao revealed the truth that, the court’s criminal division concealed case documents including Prosecutor’s documents.
On October 25, 2017, Defendant submitted a compliant about an interpreter Mr. Liang Wang, but the court still hired him in the trial. During the trial, All the people spoke English so fast that it was impossible for the interpreters to provide the accurate service for Mr. Zhao, and when there were the big documents, the interpreters did not interpret for all of the contents. On October 31, 2017, Judge Sletvold did not allow the big interpreting error to be corrected.
On October 30, 2017, Ms. Mei Hong, who got to know this case on internet and went with her child to the court to support Mr. Zhao. Mr. Zhao sat with the child separately when they were waiting. A court interpreter waved to the people, showing that the people shall enter into the courtroom. When all the people were entering the courtroom, Judge Sletvold who sat on the bench, told Mr. Zhao she saw he walked into the courtroom in a group including a child, and there was a bail condition of no contact with persons under 18 years of age, and Judge Sletvold wrongly ruled that Mr. Zhao violated with the bail condition. It is the false accusation without physical evidence. Then Mr. Zhao has been wrongly arrested again since October 30, 2017, so he did not have opportunity to prepare thousands of pages of case documents and to arrange his witnesses to testify in the trial. On December 18, 2017, on the sentencing hearing Judge Sletvold did not allow Ms. Mei Hong to testify that Mr. Zhao never contacted with her child.
Within ten days of Mr. Zhao’s arrest, although Mr. Zhao’s son-in-law’s family are blue-workers, Mr. Zhao’s son-in-law had the exceptional ability to initiate five case bombings all against Mr. Zhao’s family; Mr. Zhao’s son-in-law also had the exceptional ability to be not punished when on December 24, 2016 he instigated other people to make the false report to the police that Mr. Zhao’s granddaughter was “sexually assaulted” by Mr. Zhao. On November 1, 2017, many people witnessed Mr. Zhao’s son-in-law’s mother closely walked together with Prosecutor Laura Majewski and Trooper James Ford and other legal officials in this case.
Download All the Exhibits:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JrRuL2SkELN1EzRQRelYp_6GTtjcxy0I?usp=sharin
(The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Get Real America. Edited by Jianyu Hou)