Deputy prosecutor Rinda Baker with the Crawford County prosecutors office who is a candidate for the office of Crawford County Head Prosecutor may have violated state and local law concerning the duplication and dissemination of nude photos of a minor in a discovery packet she provided to the public defenders office last week.
The photos, which were part of the evidence against a man on trial for Possessing, Distributing or Viewing Matter Depicting Child Sex, were the subject of a notice filed with the court on February 12 by Ryan Norris of the Public Defender's office.
The case involves a 35-year-old male who admitted to police that he had "sexual interactions" with the teenager over Messenger. He also admitted he knew the victims age when they exchanged nude pictures.
(This is a copy of the narrative by the investigating detective. It is redacted for the victims name, the victims mother's name and the name of the suspect to avoid revealing any information that might identify the victim.)
According to the notice to the court that Norris filed on February 12, on February 11 Baker put the defendant and his attorney on notice that discovery information was ready to be picked up from the Prosecuting Attorney’s office.
When Norris reviewed the information, he became aware the discovery contained nude images of the alleged minor victim. The images were contained on a CD file provided to Norris and "appear to be reproduced for the purposes of discovery from the prosecutor’s file".
The CD file was not labeled as to the nature of its contents.
"It is counsel’s understanding that disseminating these images outside an authorized law enforcement agency is a violation of Federal and State law. Further, under Federal and State law any person who is not employed by an authorized law enforcement agency could be in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2251 and A.C.A. § 5-27-602 if in possession of nude images of minors," the Notice to the Court continued.
Norris confirmed the situation by telephone and said he "immediately" notified the court as soon as he saw the pictures in question. He filed the Notice to the Court at 1:47 p.m. on February 12.
Here is the complete, redacted Notice to the Court:
Today in Fort Smith reached out to Baker this morning in an effort to get a statement about the situation. A voice mail was left asking for a repsonse before our 5 p.m. deadline but we did not get a return call.
We also reached out Baker's oponent in the upcoming election, Kevin Holmes. Holmes responded with the following statement:
"Any experienced attorney would know duplicating and distributing these images was against the law, especially a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney," Holmes statement reads. "Now the entity that should have been protecting the victim has allowed one of its attorneys to commit a felony under both State and Federal law."
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