Attorney Stacey Jackson faults lack of witnesses in music promoter’s child porn trial

Just because police found lewd images of underage boys on Stevie Porter’s laptop computer doesn’t mean he put them there.

That’s what defense attorney Stacey Jackson told jurors Wednesday during closing arguments in Porter’s trial on charges of child molestation, enticing a child for indecent purposes and 10 counts of child sexual exploitation.

Child sexual exploitation is how Georgia law defines possessing child pornography. Prosecutors showed jurors about 10 lewd images of boys ages 16 or 17 extracted from Porter’s laptop computer, where they say police also found a homemade sex video.

But they didn’t prove Porter put those images on his computer, to which others had access, as Porter had no security key to keep them out, Jackson said.

The law requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Porter “knowingly” possessed the depictions with “intent,” Jackson said, faulting prosecutors for presenting no witnesses or evidence to back that up.

Porter, a self-styled music promoter and teen mentor, is accused of luring teens to what was then his Forrest Road home with the promise of helping them pursue careers in entertainment, then serving them alcohol and marijuana as he sought to procure nude images or try to seduce them.

On Jan. 26, 2013, he reported to police that seven or eight teenagers, at least one of them a Carver High School football star, invaded his home and demanded to know whether he was gay. They hit him with a tire iron and took his cell phone, laptop, a computer monitor, keyboard and some cash, he said.

Prosecutors told a different story, saying a teen borrowing Porter’s cell phone found a nude image of a boy on it and said to Porter, “Hey man, you gay?” That provoked the youth and others with him to take the phone and computer gear so Porter couldn’t show the images off.

The teens showed the pictures to their parents, one of whom took the equipment to Columbus attorney Alphonza Whitaker, brother of Chief Assistant District Attorney Alonza Whitaker. The attorney surrendered the gear when police provided a search warrant for it.

While deriding the prosecution for its lack of evidence, Jackson pointed out that not one of the boys engaged in the alleged robbery testified during the trial, nor did any of their parents.

“That’s not fair, is it?” Jackson asked. “Wouldn’t you want to be able to confront your accusers?”

He also faulted the prosecution for failing to corroborate a witness’ testimony that at age 14 on Dec. 7, 2012, he was served booze and marijuana at Porter’s home, where Porter showed him and a girl a homemade pornographic video. Other boys also were there that night, but they left, leaving only him, Porter and the girl there, he said.

He said Porter made lewd comments and tried to get him to sleep with him. When the boy’s mother called police the next morning about her missing son, and patrol officers came to Porter’s home to investigate, Porter had him and the girl go to a back room and remain silent until the police left, he said.

But none of the other teens who were with him testified in court, Jackson said, and the witness could not explain why he didn’t get the officers’ attention if he felt threatened while they were outside Porter’s home.

Another youth said he was one of two males videotaped having sex with a female on the homemade sex video found on Porter’s computer, but he testified Porter was not present when the sex act occurred, so he didn’t know who recorded it.

Though some of the nude images came from a Kodak EasyShare camera, police found no EasyShare camera when they searched Porter’s home, Jackson said, adding officers also found no marijuana and no “exorbitant” amount of alcohol, despite claims Porter plied juveniles with booze.

Porter roomed with a younger brother, and prosecutors did not rule out the brother’s having downloaded images to Porter’s computer, Jackson said.

He also said images could have been added to Porter’s laptop after the teens stole it.

Clearly that is not what happened, countered Assistant District Attorney Chris Williams: A police computer technician testified the images were added to Porter’s laptop on Dec. 24, 2012, about a month before the teens took it on Jan. 26, 2013.

“It’s undisputed these photos were found on his laptop,” Williams said, accusing Jackson of trying to distract jurors’ from the core evidence.

He said the evidence shows Porter “preys on young boys” with promises of success in the entertainment field: “He baits them with music. He reels them in,” the prosecutor said, adding, “Mr. Porter is a poser. He’s a pretender.”

With closing arguments concluded, jurors are to return to Judge Gil McBride’s courtroom at 9 a.m. Thursday to be instructed in the law by which they must weigh the evidence, after which deliberations begin.

This story was originally published November 1, 2017 at 5:30 PM with the headline "Attorney Stacey Jackson faults lack of witnesses in music promoter’s child porn trial."