A Searsport man with a conviction for gross sexual misconduct with a youth younger than 14 was arrested this week after child pornography was reportedly discovered on a computer he used frequently.
William G. Corbin, 47, was charged with possession of sexually explicit material of a child younger than 12 and taken to Waldo County Jail. He was later released on bail.
Detective Mike McFadden of the Belfast Police Department said a call was received last October that Corbin was viewing images of children, who were thought to be local, on a computer in Belfast where he had Internet access.
McFadden said sites such as FaceBook, MySpace and Yahoo can be searched by age and region, and Corbin was legally looking at nonsexual images on them.
The detective ran Corbin's name through a police database and found Corbin was convicted of gross sexual misconduct with a minor under 14 in 1984, though he was not then listed on the Sex Offenders Registry. He has since been listed, McFadden said.
“There was nothing criminal at this point,” McFadden said, but the combination of a sex offender looking at images of local children was “disturbing.”
McFadden went to the home where Corbin had Internet access. “He was using a computer that wasn't his and not paying for it, so there was no expectation of privacy,” said McFadden.
The detective asked the computer's owner if he could borrow the hard drive, which he took back to his office. McFadden looked at the hard drive using a write-blocking device that doesn't alter what's on the drive, and found “absolutely nothing.”
Corbin had deleted everything, McFadden said, which raised a red flag in the detective's mind. “If he was doing legal stuff, he wouldn't bother to delete everything,” McFadden said.
When McFadden returned the hard drive, Corbin was there, and he “admitted to viewing pornographic material, though not involving children.”
Corbin used the computer in Belfast to download material onto discs that he took to his home in Searsport to view. Corbin reportedly took McFadden to his home and gave him several CDs and hard drives to take with him. McFadden said he found several images of child pornography on the CDs, then returned to Corbin's home to tell him what he had discovered.
McFadden said he had enough information to obtain a search warrant, but he asked Corbin to consent to a thorough review of his computer. Corbin reportedly agreed, and McFadden took the machine to the state's Computer Crimes Unit in Augusta.
McFadden learned Corbin scavenged old computer parts from the Searsport dump and had picked up computer discs containing candid snapshots of local people, including young girls and children.
The detective urged people to be careful when they dispose of family photos because they could end up being used by others for sexual gratification. “These are innocent pictures until they're put in this guy's hands,” he said.
Scott Bradeen of the Lewiston Police Department, a member of the computer unit, reviewed Corbin's computer and found 250 images of child pornography, McFadden said. The images were sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which keeps extensive records of the origins of child pornography. The center said the images were created in France, Florida, Illinois, England, Washington, North Carolina, Russia and other distant places.
“This is not a Belfast problem,” he said. “That's why it's important that everyone get on this bandwagon.”
Though there is no evidence that Corbin was molesting children, McFadden said, “You look at and spend time with what you're interested in. I'm interested in riding my motorcycle. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't do it. If viewing pictures of children (engaged in sexual acts) disgusts you, you wouldn't do it. You can't argue with that.”
The Corbin case is one of three McFadden is working on that involves child pornography, he said. The detective will soon establish a satellite office in Belfast for the Computer Crimes Unit, performing preliminary investigations of suspected computers for the state's lab in Vassalboro.
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