Angry in the Great White North

First I said that when John Mark Karr would be forced to face 6-year-old California misdemeanor charges for possession of child pornography, the quality of the evidence would be challenged in negotiating any plea bargain.

When it was revealed that the computer was actually lost, I predicted that the deal would go out the window and Karr would go for a full dismissal.

That's exactly what it happening to the man I believe purposely concocted a false confession in the JonBenet Ramsey murder in order to be extracted from Thailand, calculating that he could evade any lingering charges once the Ramsey case fell apart:

Key evidence that's gone missing in the child pornography case against John Mark Karr could set the one-time JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect free from criminal charges for a second time.

Karr's lawyers [including Gayle Gutekunst] argued Wednesday that the five misdemeanor charges against their client should be dropped amid revelations that the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department lost the computer that allegedly held the pornographic images, as well as copies of its contents.

An attempt to use other evidence not entered was squashed by the judge:

Sheriff's Detective John Eubanks, however, testified that he recently found more child porn among 1,600 pornographic images on about 100 diskettes, CDs and a removable disk drive taken from Karr in 2001. He has not been charged in connection with those images.

Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Cerena Wong interrupted Eubanks' testimony, calling his analysis of the other evidence irrelevant.

"That computer which contained those five images is missing," Wong said.

Pathetic. Not the judge -- she's absolutely right. The deputy was a fool to think he could start blabbing about other alleged crimes for which Karr was not charged.

But here's when it gets very interesting. In the earlier report, the sheriff's department said they had copies of the original material that they would try to use instead as evidence. I thought that would never fly, but as it turns out, the copies are missing too:

Sheriff's property room chief Helga Ritter described hours of repeated and systematic searches that failed to turn up the missing computer.

"We checked every computer that we had," she testified. "This is the first time this has ever happened."

With the copies also missing, all that remains is reports from the 2001 investigation about what was contained on the computer.

Incompetence, and lies as well:

Earlier, Wong said she sealed police records in the Karr case partly because Chief Deputy District Attorney Joann Risse had said they were still examining the computer. She criticized Risse for misleading her and said she would reconsider unsealing the search and arrest warrants when the hearing continues Friday.

Ritter said she told the lead investigator as early as Aug. 18 that the computer was missing. The prosecutor admitted she knew about it since Aug. 30.

The sheriff's department told the judge that they were still examining the computer that was long-since lost, in an attempt to gain time to find it.

Someone is going to get slapped upside the head for this.

Meanwhile, Karr is likely to be released. He has rejected any plea bargain.

But here is where my instincts for weird connection kicks in. The computer is gone. The copies of the disks are gone. The sheriiff insists this is the only time they've ever lost a computer. Karr selects this time to make his Ramsey move and get flown back to the United States. Perfect timing? Or did he know the evidence was gone and that he would face no charges for either Ramsey or the child pornography?

If so, how did he know? Is there someone on the inside of the sheriff's deparment helping him out? Or was it just dumb luck of another kind? Is there someone in the department who likes child pornography and helped himself to Karr's computer, figuring it was a dead case and not likely to ever go to trial? That person starts trading Karr's old photos, as child porn fetishists do in order to build up their personal collection, and Karr catches site of items from his old collection re-appearing. He tracks down the source, and is either told or himself infers that the evidence against him has been compromised in some way, and figures it's safe to come home.

It sounds crazy, but it's either that or Karr is the luckiest pervert in history.

Update: More on the pending dismissal, and the abysmal performance of the sheriff's department:

A Sonoma County judge handling the 5-year-old child pornography case against John Mark Karr threatened Monday to dismiss the charges and lashed into prosecutors for not telling her that key evidence -- a computer and hard drive containing sexually explicit images -- had been lost.

Superior Court Judge Cerena Wong said she will consider a motion from Karr's attorney, Robert Amparan, to dismiss the 2001 case on Wednesday, a move that if approved would set Karr free without his having to register as a sex offender in California. Wong also will consider whether to unseal evidence in the case.

Sheriff's officials admitted last week that they had lost the computer and hard drive that were seized from Karr's home and allegedly contained lewd photographs of children. The pictures were the basis of misdemeanor possession of child pornography charges filed against Karr when he lived and worked as a school teacher in the North Bay.

Sheriff Bill Cogbill said he believes the computer was thrown out, along with 40,000 other pieces of evidence, when the sheriff's department moved to a new building in 2002. Chief Deputy District Attorney Joan Risse said her office has printouts of 1,600 photographs from the computer, including the five that Karr is charged with having, but the original computer images are missing.

What will this mean, should Karr walk free?

Prosecutors admitted they are pursuing the case mainly so Karr will register as a sex offender, which would show up on background checks should he apply for a job in a field involving children.

In terms of jail time, there wasn't going to be any, simply because Karr has already been in jail for about the amount of time he would likely have been required to serve had he been found guilty. So the registration was the best thing prosecutors could have hoped for, and now they won't be able to get that thanks to the sheriff's department:

Wong castigated Risse for not informing her that the computer was lost even though she has known about it since Aug. 30. She said the sealing orders and other decisions were based on representations Risse made about continuing efforts to obtain more information from the computer.

She also criticized Sgt. Robert Giordano, a Sonoma County Sheriff's Department investigator, for allegedly misleading her about the evidence during a closed-door conference. "I'm very concerned about representations made to the court. The court made decisions based on those representations," Wong said. "I'm really not happy at all with the way this case has been going."

If people don't lose their jobs over this, I'll be amazed.

Still, no one can explain just how it was that Karr pegged this to be just the right time to return. Probably dumb luck. Probably.