As many of you know, Lisa Biron, a lawyer who has worked in the past with the Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund), faces federal and state charges of child exploitation and possession of child porn. After reading Scott Wooledge's excellent piece on the case. I decided to do some more digging. Suffice to say it isn't pretty.
According to the Concord Monitor, Biron's been under the microscope since late September.
The police began investigating Biron on Sept. 29 when a man came into the Manchester Police Department and reported that he had seen pornography on her computer, according to Nick Willard, who heads the department’s investigative unit. Willard declined to say how the man knew Biron.
He said investigators had information about who they believed to be the juvenile in the images and conducted several interviews before receiving a search warrant Oct. 9.
Officers executed the warrant that same day at Biron’s 42 Pratt Court home in Manchester. A forensic search was completed on Biron’s computer and she was arrested later that day after investigators found the pornographic materials, according to Willard.
The FBI was called in soon after Biron was arrested, as Manchester police suspected that the porn had been produced out of state. As it turned out, according to Canada's
National Post, Biron
took the girl to Niagara Falls, Ontario twice this year--in May and August--where she filmed the girl having sex.
Biron was formally arraigned on October 26 on seven counts of possession of child porn.
The police have not charged Biron with making the pornography, just possessing five videos and two images of the same teenage girl engaging in sexually explicit conduct with an unknown male.
Biron knows the juvenile in the materials and has been ordered to have no contact with her, according to Nick Willard, who heads the Manchester Police Department’s investigative unit.
Biron declined to comment yesterday following her arraignment at Manchester’s district court. Prosecutors agreed to keep her bail at $35,000, which Biron posted after her Oct. 9 arrest through a corporate surety company. Biron, who did not have a lawyer but applied for a court-appointed one yesterday, waived a formal reading of the charges.
Under her bail conditions, Biron has also been ordered to have no unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 18 and suspend any use of her Facebook account or computer for anything other than work.
Biron was also told not to have any weapons. But it turns out she openly flouted those conditions. Soon after her release, she posted an ad to Craigslist. And according to the
Monitor piece announcing her arrest on federal charges, Biron has been seen in possession of ecstasy, marijuana and cocaine. She also told the FBI that she had a loaded pistol under her mattress. They didn't find a gun--but they did find 200 rounds of ammo.
From what I've been able to find out, Biron is staring down the barrel of some serious jail time. The seven state charges are all class A felonies, carrying a minimum of seven years and a maximum of 15 years. Transporting a minor across state or international lines to have sex carries a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life, while child exploitation carries a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of life. The federal child porn charge carries a minimum of 10 years. Under sentencing guidelines she faces a minimum of four years, but given she took the girl to another country she might be looking at substantial upward departure.
Bottom line--if I were Biron, I'd be in plea bargain talks. Now.