Amero

Hard to imagine this story getting any stranger.

One of the jurists on the Amero case wrote to Steve Bass at Computer World under the handle of ConnYankee1951.

Apparently Bass has confirmed the emailer was on the jury that convicted Julie Amero, which is a scary thought after reading the rational for conviction.

Read that article and comments here

Followed by an article written after Bass received an email from Detective Mark Lounsbury; the crime prevention officer with the Norwich Police Department who testified for the prosecution.

The emails are flying around, Region 19 BOE Gazette was tipped off to this story:

WTNH news

(Norwich-AP, Dec. 20, 2001 12:40 PM) A Norwich police detective has admitted to drinking beer while driving a minor around the city on a sting targeting alcohol sales to underage drinkers.

That’s according to a report in today’s Day of New London newspaper.

Detective Mark Lounsbury, who drove the police van used in the undercover sting operation on November 30th made the admission last week to Deputy Chief Warren Mocek, the newspaper reported.

Mocek is overseeing an investigation into a misconduct complaint against Lounsbury and Lieutenant James Daigle.

A 20-year-old woman claims Daigle photographed her topless while she was working for the department in the same sting operation.

What a cast of characters.

Comments I have read on the web remind me of The Salem Witchcraft Trials history, circa 1692.

I can understand a teacher being reprimanded for web browsing or checking personal email while in class, but Amero faces 40 years in prison for allegedly exposing kids to porn. Many IT Security experts believe she is innocent.

One juror was quoted at boston.com (The Boston Globe), that all Amero had to do was throw a coat over the computer or…. Would that be before, or after she called the fire truck.

Since Paperghost linked at Vitalsecurity to the article at boston.com, it appears, as of writing, one now has to register and login to see it.

Amero has stated that before class started, she had been told not to turn off the machine and the fact that she did not, has been discussed ad nauseam.

Follow-up.

Alex Eckelberr. Preston Gralla: A class act

Preston Gralla wrote a follow-up to his previous article.

I wrote last week about a teacher found guilty of surfing porn sites in the front of a class of seventh graders — and I said that justice was served. But based on the many dozens of comments I got, it looks as if I may have been wrong, and her PC may have been infested with spyware. If that’s true, she was railroaded, and she should not have been found guilty.

Article

Some of you may have been watching the case of Julie Amero, the substitute teacher convicted for a porn spyware infestation on a classroom computer.

Amero is now facing up to 40 years in prison.

I find the apparent incompetence of the Court, and that of the so-called ‘experts’ testifying for the prosecution, very troubling. They appear to have sparse knowledge of what a malware infestation can do to a PC.

Take a look at any of the support forums (a few listed here in the right-side column) to see a sampling of many victims.

Julie Amero has been thrown back into the dark ages of ye ol’ witch hunt.

Preston Gralla, Computerworld:

For once, justice prevails.

No it most certainly has not Mr Gralla.

Alex Eckelberry, President of Sunbelt Software, has made his own experts available to the defense on a pro-bono basis for any analysis of the infected machine.

Article at the Sunbelt Blog