Opinion ID: 4561170
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Images of Relative

Text: At trial, SA Foiles testified that he conducted an open-source internet search on Beau2358 to confirm Croghan’s identity and discovered that a user account on PrimeJailbait.com matched the user name from Playpen. Beau2358 had uploaded five images of what appeared to be a 14- or 15-year-old female on PrimeJailbait.com. SA Foiles explained that PrimeJailbat.com “was a website that had legal pictures of clothed . . . people, but they were generally minors, younger than 18.” Trial Tr., Vol. II, at 151. On direct examination, the government showed SA Foiles Exhibit 15—the pictures posted on PrimeJailbait.com. After SA Foiles authenticated the exhibit, the government offered Exhibit 15 into evidence. Croghan did not object to its admission. SA Foiles then testified that the FBI identified the female in the pictures as one of Croghan’s relatives. Croghan’s counsel also did not object to this testimony. -10- Croghan’s relative who appeared in the pictures also testified. She confirmed that Exhibit 15 contained pictures of her found on PrimeJailbait.com. She testified that she did not post the pictures; in fact, she had “never heard of the website.” Id. at 221. According to Croghan’s relative, she posted those pictures to her private Facebook account. She knew that Croghan had seen “Picture No. 3” because he had commented on the picture. Id. at 222. She testified that she found out that her pictures were posted to PrimeJailbait.com three years before trial. When asked how the posting made her feel, Croghan’s relative responded, “Very uncomfortable and kind of scared for my life.” Id. After her response, Croghan’s counsel objected to this question based on relevance, and the district court overruled the objection. Croghan’s relative then explained that she was “uncomfortable and scared” “[b]ecause [she] had posted these photos for [her] family to see but not for sickos out there to see.” Id. Croghan’s counsel did not cross-examine Croghan’s relative. On appeal, Croghan argues that the district court erroneously permitted “the government to elicit testimony from SA Foiles and . . . Croghan’s female relative suggesting that [he] uploaded images of the relative to PrimeJailBait.com.” Appellant’s Br. at 14. He also asserts that the district court erroneously admitted Exhibit 15—the pictures of the female relative posted on PrimeJailBait.com. He notes that while he “unsuccessfully objected to the female relative’s testimony that the ordeal made her very uncomfortable and scared for her life,” he failed to “object to the evidence regarding PrimeJailBait.com.” Id. He concedes that “this [c]ourt reviews for plain error.” Id. “The plain error test requires an (1) error, (2) that is plain, and (3) that affects substantial rights. The error may only be remedied if it seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States v. Zurheide, 959 F.3d 919, 921 (8th Cir. 2020) (cleaned up). -11- Croghan maintains that the district court violated Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b)(1) by admitting the PrimeJailBait.com evidence. According to Croghan, “[t]he PrimeJailBait.com images were not pornographic, erotic, or connected in any way to the charged offenses.” Appellant’s Br. at 15. He maintains that “[t]he government offered the evidence to establish that [he] had a propensity for trafficking images of children, which is precisely what Rule 404(b)(1) was designed to prevent.” Id. Alternatively, Croghan argues that the district court should have excluded the PrimeJailBait.com evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 as substantially more prejudicial than probative. Croghan asserts that the evidence did not assist the jury in answering “whether [he] received or accessed child pornography through Playpen”; instead, the evidence “tended to show that [he] reposted photographs of a young relative on a despicable (but evidently lawful) website.” Id. at 17. “We will reverse the district court’s 404(b) ruling only if the evidence clearly has no bearing on the case.” United States v. Fechner, 952 F.3d 954, 961 (8th Cir. 2020). Rule 404(b)(1) provides that “[e]vidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character.” Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1). However, Rule 404(b)(2) states that “[t]his evidence may be admissible for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.” “Rule 404(b) is thus a rule of inclusion rather than exclusion and admits evidence of other crimes or acts relevant to any issue in the trial, unless it tends to prove only criminal disposition.” United States v. Heidebur, 122 F.3d 577, 579 (8th Cir. 1997) (internal quotation omitted). This means that “evidence of prior bad acts that is probative of the crime charged is not excluded under Rule 404(b).” Id. (internal quotation omitted). Rule 404(b) does not exclude other-acts evidence if such evidence is: (1) relevant to a material issue raised at trial; (2) similar in kind and close in time to the crime charged; (3) supported by sufficient evidence -12- to support a jury finding that the defendant committed the other act; and (4) its probative value is not substantially outweighed by its prejudicial value. Id. at 580. We recently addressed whether a district court erroneously admitted child erotica images in a defendant’s trial for transportation of child pornography and receipt of child pornography. Fechner, 952 F.3d at 960. In that case, “[a] forensic examination of [the defendant’s] devices showed extensive child pornography downloads and searches, with over 100 items being moved to an SD card in his phone and later deleted.” Id. at 957. At trial on the transportation and receipt charges, “[t]he government . . . introduced images of young girls and women found on [the defendant’s] SD card that the district court described as child erotica.” Id. at 958. In doing so, “[t]he government asserted that these images were relevant to show [the defendant’s] sexual interest in children and, based on their presence on the SD card, his knowledge of child pornography also located on the SD card.” Id. The defendant moved to exclude the images. Id. The district court denied the motion. Id. It “recognized that the possession of the child erotica was not illegal but determined that the evidence was probative to issues of knowledge, motive, and sexual interest in children and was not unduly prejudicial.” Id. On appeal, the defendant argued that the district court erroneously admitted the child erotica images because they “were improper propensity evidence used only to establish that he acted in accordance with his alleged character.” Id. at 960. We held that the child erotica images were admissible under Rule 404(b). Id. at 962. We explained that “[t]he child erotica images [were] . . . relevant to establish a motive for possessing child pornography and rebut claims of accident or mistake.” Id. at 961 (citing United States v. Vosburgh, 602 F.3d 512, 538 (3d Cir. 2010) (finding the possession of child erotica suggested that the defendant “harbored a sexual interest -13- in children, and tended to disprove any argument that he unknowingly” or accidentally possessed child pornography images); United States v. Hansel, 524 F.3d 841, 846 (8th Cir. 2008) (finding possession of child erotica, as part of the totality of the circumstances, can establish probable cause that defendant had child pornography on his computer)). We next rejected the defendant’s argument “that the potential prejudice and the jury’s likelihood to misuse propensity evidence outweigh[ed] any probative value.” Id. We examined two prior cases in which we held that pornographic stories were inadmissible under Rule 404(b) in defendants’ prosecutions for possession of child pornography. Id. (citing United States v. Evans, 802 F.3d 942, 946–47 (8th Cir. 2015) (holding that the district court properly denied the government’s motion “to introduce stories found on [the defendant’s] media devices about adult men engaging in sexual acts with minors” in highly organized files because the evidence by itself did not rebut the defendant’s argument that a virus placed the files on his computer); United States v. Johnson, 439 F.3d 884, 885 (8th Cir. 2006) (holding “two fictionalized accounts . . . detailing the abduction and forcible rape of a thirteen-year-old girl and the incestuous rape of a fifteen-year-old girl” found under the defendant’s bed were admitted to demonstrate his interest in and predisposition to possess child pornography and did not aid in determining if the defendant inadvertently downloaded child pornography, as he claimed)). We distinguished Johnson and Evans, explaining that the pornographic stories in those cases “were offered solely to establish an interest in young children. No other possibility existed for their usefulness at trial.” Id. at 962. By contrast, the child erotica images were “locat[ed] in the same place where deleted child pornography hash values were found, and evidence that child erotica had to be manually moved to the SD card, was relevant to the jury’s determination of whether [the defendant] knowingly possessed child pornography.” Id. -14- Alternatively, we held that [e]ven if there was error in admitting the child erotica images, it was harmless. While the content of the child erotica may suggest a sexual interest in children, that is not the sole purpose of the evidence. The jury saw only one image and the content of the images was not discussed at length. Id. (citing Evans, 802 F.3d at 949 (finding the admission of propensity evidence harmless where the jury did not hear the content of the pornographic stories and “ample properly-admitted evidence” limited the stories’ likelihood of influencing the jury’s verdict)). We hold that the district court did not plainly err in admitting the PrimeJailBait.com evidence. As in Fechner, where the child erotica images were admitted to prove motive and rebut claims of accident or mistake, the pictures of Croghan’s relative on PrimeJailBait.com and testimony concerning those pictures were offered for the permissible purpose of proving Croghan’s identity as Beau2358. The PrimeJailBait.com evidence was relevant because it confirmed that Croghan was Beau2358: he used Beau2358 not only on PrimeJailBait.com to post pictures from his relative’s private Facebook account, but also as his user name on Playpen. And, similar to the PrimeJailBait.com website, Croghan—as Beau2358—looked at a section of Playpen entitled “Jail Bait.” “Even if there was error in admitting the [PrimeJailBait.com evidence], it was harmless.” See id. The evidence’s “sole purpose” was not to “suggest a sexual interest in children.” Id. Furthermore, SA Foiles acknowledged that PrimeJailBait.com “was a website that had legal pictures of . . . clothed people” who “were generally minors, younger than 18.” Trial Tr., Vol. II, at 151 (emphasis added). And, SA Foiles did not discuss the “content of the images,” see Fechner, 952 F.3d at 962, other than saying that they “appeared to be of a female around 14, 15” years of age and that the female -15- was identified as one of Croghan’s relatives. Trial Tr., Vol. II, at 151. Likewise, Croghan’s relative provided only general details about the pictures. She testified that they were taken at her “Halloween-themed birthday party” when she turned 16 years old. Id. at 220. Her central testimony was that she had posted the pictures only to her private Facebook account (that Croghan had access to) and not to PrimeJailBait.com. The admission of her testimony that the posting made her “[v]ery uncomfortable and kind of scared for [her] life,” id. at 222, was harmless in light of the “ample properly-admitted evidence that [Croghan] knowingly [received] child pornography.” Evans, 802 F.3d at 949; see infra Part II.B.