Opinion ID: 4561170
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Testimony about Croghan’s Children

Text: When SA Foiles was conducting the open-source internet search on Beau2358, he discovered “a blog posting that was reportedly authored by a Beau Croghan.” Trial Tr., Vol. II, at 151. In that blog post, Croghan mentioned that he had three children. SA Foiles testified that learning Croghan had three children was concerning “because [the FBI’s] primary objective with all this is trying to rescue victims of sexual abuse. And so the first thing we want to look for is actually hands-on offenders, those that are sexually abusing children, and then possibly producing images from that sexual abuse.” Id. at 152. Croghan’s counsel did not object. Croghan’s failure to object to SA Foiles’s testimony means that our review is for plain error only. See Zurheide, 959 F.3d at 921. Croghan argues that the district court should have struck SA Foiles’s testimony as “irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial.” Appellant’s Br. at 18 (citing Fed. R. Evid. 402, 403). Croghan contends that “SA Foiles[’s] concern for rescuing child victims of sexual abuse . . . had nothing to do with [his] case” because no evidence existed that he “sexually abused children or produced child pornography, or that his children were in any particular danger.” Id. at 18–19. Croghan maintains that the testimony was prejudicial because it “implied that there was tangible cause for concern for [his] children” and “was likely to arouse the passions of the jury.” Id. at 19. -16- We hold that the district court did not plainly err by not striking SA Foiles’s testimony. SA Foiles’s testimony concerned how the FBI identified Croghan as Beau2358. One of the identifiers was that Croghan had a blog, which stated that he had three children. SA Foiles never testified that he suspected Croghan of sexually abusing his children. Instead, he testified that the primary objective throughout the investigation was “to rescue victims of sexual abuse.” Trial Tr., Vol. II, at 152. The first step to accomplish this primary objective is “to look for . . . hands-on offenders, those that are sexually abusing children, and then possibly producing images from that sexual abuse.” Id. Read in context, SA Foiles was explaining the steps he took as part of his investigation and why he took those steps. His testimony briefly mentioned Croghan’s children and did not suggest that Croghan had sexually abused them.