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Thursday, September 20, 2007

No Charges Filed Against Out-of-State Sex Offender

By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
    Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents searched the Torrance County home of an out-of-state registered sex offender more than six weeks ago, but the man has still not been charged with any crimes.
    Agents seized computers from the home of Terry Slade, 55, on Lexco Road during the Aug. 3 search. They also confiscated Slade's computer and portable drives from his work as a contractor employee at Sandia National Labs.
    The computers contained images of child pornography as well as e-mails and other evidence, according to court documents.
    Slade was not registered as a sex offender in New Mexico, Torrance County Sheriff Clarence Gibson said Tuesday.
    Registered sex offenders have 10 days to register in New Mexico after moving to the state, and it is a fourth-degree felony if they do not, said Regina Chacon, assistant bureau chief of the state Department of Public Safety.
    Although Slade has a state driver's license, Chacon was unable to say how long he has lived in the Moriarty area.
    "I can solidly say that based on the information we have, Slade is required to register as a sex offender in the state of New Mexico," Chacon said in a phone interview Tuesday.
    During the search of Slade's home, Slade threatened to hurt himself so Gibson called Moriarty ambulance. Medical personnel checked Slade, who was then taken to an Albuquerque hospital for a mental evaluation.
    Slade was released within several days, Gibson said.
    The search warrant was obtained after ICE special agent Jeffrey Chappell contacted the federal Office of the Inspector General on July 18, according to an affidavit by Matthew Lee Goward, special agent with OIG. Chappell contacted OIG because Slade worked at Sandia Labs.
    Chappell told Goward that Slade had e-mailed a suspected child pornographer and child molester in Houston, Texas.
    While investigating, special agents saw thousands of images of child pornography on the Houston computer, along with e-mails from an account that Slade used to connect to the Internet on a computer at Sandia Labs.
    An attempt to electronically image Slade's Sandia computer failed because Slade had turned it off.
    But Sandia officials had been able to make an electronic image of a thumb drive— a portable media storage device— in Slade's computer. Many child pornography images were stored on files that were on that thumb drive.
    Agents searching Slade's house also found "numerous brochures advertising DVDs featuring nude Russian boys ... Several books were also found that featured nude and partially clothed children in a spare room in Mr. Slade's residence," according to an affidavit by ICE special agent Christine Brital.
    Slade admitted during an interview with agents searching his home that he had traded in and bought child pornography tapes. Agents also found "numerous rolls of undeveloped film, negatives and reel movies" stored in Slade's house, Brital said.
    Goward also received several CDs, hard drives and other thumb drives from Sandia that were found in Slade's Sandia workspace, containing many files of young "boys in various states of dress and undress," according to Goward's affidavit. A CD also contained several erotic stories involving young boys.
    A National Crime Information Center check on Slade listed a 1985 conviction in Utah for receiving obscene material involving minors, Goward's affidavit said. The NCIC check also listed a 1993 conviction in Eugene, Ore., on three felony counts of possessing depictions of child sexual conduct and three felony counts of dealing in depictions of child sexual conduct, that affidavit said.
    According to an Oregon police report cited by Goward, Slade admitted to police that he allowed neighborhood children to view child pornography pictures.
    Slade also told Oregon police that he was a member of the North American Man Boy Love association, that he had been attracted to young boys from an early age, and knew that possession of child pornography was illegal.
    Slade is a registered sex offender in Oregon.
    Slade's car is a red 2006 Kia Spectra with New Mexico license plate GND 840, according to Goward's affidavit.
    Federal authorities are extremely thorough in this type of investigation, Gibson said, explaining a possible reason why Slade has not been charged.
    "Searching authorities must examine all the stored data to determine which files are evidence," Goward said in his affidavit. "This sorting process can take days or weeks, depending on the volume of data stored."