THIS IS OFFICIAL. NOT SPECULATION. HE HAS BEEN CHARGED ON TWO COUNTS. HE'S BEEN SENTENCED. Short story, the gist if you will, feel free to look into this as much or little as you want, but this type of thing should be known in the community: Last year Bill Borgida was crossing the border,…
Originally posted Friday, January 15, 2010 (2 years ago)
And now they are arresting teenagers for child pornography for sending naked pictures of themselves to each other. Not complicated at all. It's all just breaking the law.
:::where is the roll eyes emoticon when I need it.:::
In the eyes of the law, it's really not. I don't think anyone is arguing here. If Bill didn't break the law, there is no point to this thread. However, morally speaking, it's all gray. Some say that all pornography is immoral, period. I think Wexie is just saying don't make any moral judgments until all the facts are in. Legally, I think it's all already been decided...
Originally posted Friday, January 15, 2010 (2 years ago)
I think it perhaps feels complicated, at least for some, because we don't know all/many of the details, and Bill is someone who many of us have known for a long time. So it is emotionally complicated when someone you know and respect does something slimy (and illegal) like this. It is one thing to flirt with too-young girls (at one point I'm sure I was one of them), and quite another thing to have child porn.
Anyone know what his sentence is? I couldn't access the court files.
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It's true, which is probably why he admitted to it.
My interpretation of Wexie's reply is that we don't know what sort of child pornography this was or how he obtained it.
He could have downloaded porn in bulk and not realized what it contained. He could have gone searching for it. It could have been images of girls who are 17, but look like they are in their 20s or it could have been pre-pubescent girls.
We don't know. To me that makes it harder to judge him.
Sex crime laws are tricky busy for sure! At some point, they gotta write something down on the book, and it can appear random, even insane.
I have the most basic of rape breakdowns for NY State that I use with my staff. Basically a relationship with a 3 years age difference...that lasts say 4 years...goes from being a felony to a misdemeanor, to a different level felony, to legal IIRC (I don't have the materials in front of me). Crazy stuff.
Someone with a legal background can elucidate for us/me but it all has a lot to do with the circumstances of the case.
But your example, particularly in your State (NY), ain't a good one. It's not accurate to say they are often treated the same...unless by that you mean "to be borderline completely ignored by the legal system". :O
First, adjust the age down a year as 17 IS the age of consent here. A 16 year old with a 19 year old is not going anywhere legally (unless you have another factor at work here, like force). Note: that doesn't stop angry/upset parents from claiming they are pressing charges.
Now, a 16 yr old with a 40 yr old? That may go somewhere legally. But it "helps" for lack of a better word if there are other factors i.e., Joey did about 6 month in Nassau County Jail. That would not have happened if Amy hadn't shot his wife in the head.
I'm not sure what my point is here lol I guess 1) laws can seem random 2) your example wasn't the strongest, 3) most instances are either not reported or go nowhere legally, and 4) I would make a terrible attorney.
I'll give you an example. A very close friend of mine's mother was a junkie and father can hardly be considered a human being. Not only did he he take and distribute pornographic pictures of her for most of her childhood, he would pass her around to his friends while they were watching football games. To this day, she won't let anyone take a picture of her.
You then have the issue of famous "artistic" photographers who have taken nudes of children and society has to debate whether it is child pornography or not. See here for example.
Then you have a 16 year old girl topless on a beach in Europe in public. If someone took a picture of that, is it child pornography? Should you go to jail for possessing the imagery when you can go to a beach in Europe and see it in person? If you can't go to jail in Europe for that picture should you go to jail in the US for it?
Should teens who send naked pictures of themselves and send them to a boyfriend or girlfriend be arrested for child pornography?
Pretty sure it's because of the sensitivity of the case and the fact that it is rather personal. Even if it came out 5 months ago, I'm not sure if the support or alienation from the lindy community would have made any difference in this case either way...
Honestly, I think they should arrest teenagers for sending naked pictures of themselves to each other. It's illegal. It's illegal for a reason - it's child pornography. It doesn't matter that the teenagers didn't know it was illegal.
It's illegal to possess and produce child pornography. It doesn't matter if the child produced it him or her self.
The reason I think it shouldn't matter is because those texted pictures get forwarded. It doesn't take many forwards before those pictures are child pornography in the hands of strangers.
Eff, the problem are these laws are different on a state by state basis. I have read and seen (documentary stories ) about cases exactly what I'm talking about.
There are plenty of cases where a 19 year old guy gets arrested for having sex with his 16 or 17 year old girlfriend. One case I watched was this kid/guy who served a short stay in prison. He wound up marrying the girl. They have a beautiful family. He has never been in trouble before or after this particular case. Yet he still has to go down and register as a sex offender. Interviews with the prosecutor and the appropriateness of this comes down to "Well, the law is the law." Which I think is a ridiculous response.
You make a good point. And I have no problem with it being against the law, per se. But I do not think they should be treated as adults who commit the same act.
Originally posted Friday, January 15, 2010 (2 years ago)
Quoted from 7and8 Child pornography IS being inappropriate with a minor, even if the child isn't standing there in the room with him. If child pornography was appropriate behavior with a minor, it wouldn't be illegal to begin with.
That's not actually true.
Drawings/cartoons of people involved in sex acts that appear to be underage is also legally considered child porn, even if they were completely the product of someone's imagination. The law makes no distinction.
Similarly, artistic (non-pornographic) nudes of underage people are also generally considered child porn under the law. Some refer to it as "softcore" porn, but as others have mentioned morally it's extremely subjective whether or not it is porn at all. Legally however, they simply paint anything gray over with black to be safe.
Are pictures of underage girls in the underwear section of department store sales flyers, porn?
Also see Waxie's story of minors taking pictures of themselves and getting charged with creating and distributing child porn for it. It's kind of silly to argue you can be inappropriate with yourself.
The long and the short of it: Why child porn is illegal is far more complex then simply that minors are usually (but by no means always) exploited and victimized to create it.
There is a huge array of material that easily could have gotten Bill in trouble for child porn in the US, yet many (most?) people wouldn't even consider to be pornographic (including most other countries). This is something that without knowing much more of the details can't be judged honestly. Unless the court documents themselves give graphic descriptions of the evidence, they won't be a lot of help either. And because of the nature of the crime, it's impossible for any of us to see the evidence without ourselves breaking the same law.
In the end there are far more non-evil ways Bill might have ended up in this situation then evil. The law doesn't really care either way, so simply that he was convicted under the law is of no real help in passing a moral judgment. Without very specific details it's impossible to know what the real story is.
Originally posted Friday, January 15, 2010 (2 years ago)
Unfortunately, for any law there are always borderline cases which many people might not consider to be morally reprehensible but which are still considered illegal. Without further details, we don't know whether we are talking about a borderline case here or not. On one day, it can be illegal to have sex with someone, the next day (which happens to be that person's 17th birthday for example), it's legal. Perhaps those types of things are taken into consideration in the sentencing.
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Originally posted Friday, January 15, 2010 (2 years ago)
Edited on Friday, January 15, 2010 6:58 pm (2 years ago)
We should be careful to judge Bill as a person. Whereas a crime is a crime, there can be various reasons why an individual wound up breaking the law. We don't know the nature of the photos (and I'm not saying that we should find out), for all I know they could be of legal adults who appeared to be underage to the cops, lawyers, and the judge. Perhaps Bill truly believed they were adults, or maybe he believed they weren't, that we can't know for sure. Like it or not there is that gray area of human physical development where teens can be mistaken for 20-somethings, and 20-somethings for teens. And with it, are the varying perceptions among us of what does and not and does not look like an adult (as defined by whatever state you happen to be in, yet another level of complication). Do we even know how many images/vids were found on his laptop?
On the other hand, if the photos were of underage children, or if they weren't but Bill thought they were, well, that's pretty cut and dry. I say we should be very careful in choosing to demonize Bill or distance him from the dance community. Not because he is has been a vital member of the Lindy scene, but because we don't know all the facts. And if he does have a problem, I say we should not shun him for it, instead we should compassionately give him the space to rebuild himself and his life. I'm not advocating, "let's throw this under the rug and pretend it never happened," I say we should not assume he's up there with serial pedophiles. From what I understand (and I'll admit, it is not much, so correct me if I'm wrong) those who are predisposed to engaging with child porn (and even acts of pedophilia) have had traumas in their past that compel them to seek out this stimuli (even the pedophiles). Unless we have sufficient reason to suspect he will be an actual danger to others in the scene, I believe there is no reason to extricate him from the dance community.
Originally posted Friday, January 15, 2010 (2 years ago)
More and more of this is coming out because, quite frankly, the days of the Internet being the "Wild Wild West" are over. Internet providers, police, and the Feds can track what you are doing and have a record of what is on your hard drive, cell phone, etc.
An acquaintance of mine is up the river for 40 years. Like the defendant in this thread, he was known to be crude, politically incorrect, and coarse. But my acquaintance was one of the "sexters." Only he was overage and the people on the witness list were underage.
The Feds nailed him to the wall when he wouldn't cop on a rape plea, and he's paying the price today.
There isn't any "parole" in the federal system, just terms of supervised release. Whether he can have any contact with actual minors could be a condition of his supervised release, if his sentence included any.
I haven't looked at the court documents and - as in most cases - the details of the plea bargain aren't public. So, again, we don't know.
Speaking as someone who worked for a judge who had to sentence people, I can say that there is a significant difference between someone whose offense is possession of images with no prior history of offense, and someone whose offense is actual sexual abuse of a minor.
Yes, 7and8, they're both inappropriate. One of them is more inappropriate. Also true - those who can or would possess images may but do not always proceed to actual sexual abuse. Treating the former the same as the latter makes no sense from a criminal justice standpoint and is, in fact, a large part of the reason "sex offender registries" are not particularly effective.
"Unless we have sufficient reason to suspect he will be an actual danger to others in the scene, I believe there is no reason to extricate him from the dance community."
Once he is done with whatever his sentence is (I don't know), he may have to extricate himself so as not to violate his parole.
Just curious, does anyone know if the state of Michigan requires people who are convicted on child porn charges to register with the state as sex offenders? They do in some states.
Originally posted Friday, January 15, 2010 (2 years ago)
I am terribly saddened by the stance that some have taken on here. Any time there is clear evidence of inappropriate behavior with a minor, whether in pictures or physically, there is no reason why I could see them being safe to have around children.
I was around when Mo took advantage of people. I was asking questions all the time. He made innapropriate advances towards my wife(we were dating then) and many other "younger looking" girls as well.
It's one thing to be accusing people of serious crimes with no proof.... It's entirely another when there is clear evidence and that person is going to trial or already convicted. I think some have lost sight of the fact that this is an issue in this community that should be carefully watched out for. Many of us have seen the creepy guy who gets touchy feely with people.
I'm not talking witch-hunt or embarassing people. Just being aware and cautious.
People have been been throwing around a lot of hypotheticals about how unfair sex laws are, etc. But by that rationale it's just as likely that Bill had a massive library of illegal forced sex videos of 8 year olds in the third world or he was part of a child porn ring like on SVU. The speculation and hypotheticals go both ways.
All we know is that he's a convicted federal felon. And I dunno, to me that's enough to shun him. I mean, if not a child porn conviction, then what is the brightline where I can finally judge someone? That's a pretty major hurdle to not judge somebody.
And it is important to make these judgments. People get hurt and become victims when their communities fail to notice the signs because they're too timid to judge. This is first and foremost a wakeup call.
Bill Borgida: Two Counts: Child Porn.
THIS IS OFFICIAL. NOT SPECULATION. HE HAS BEEN CHARGED ON TWO COUNTS. HE'S BEEN SENTENCED. Short story, the gist if you will, feel free to look into this as much or little as you want, but this type of thing should be known in the community: Last year Bill Borgida was crossing the border,…
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And now they are arresting teenagers for child pornography for sending naked pictures of themselves to each other. Not complicated at all. It's all just breaking the law.
:::where is the roll eyes emoticon when I need it.:::
In the eyes of the law, it's really not. I don't think anyone is arguing here. If Bill didn't break the law, there is no point to this thread. However, morally speaking, it's all gray. Some say that all pornography is immoral, period. I think Wexie is just saying don't make any moral judgments until all the facts are in. Legally, I think it's all already been decided...
I think it perhaps feels complicated, at least for some, because we don't know all/many of the details, and Bill is someone who many of us have known for a long time. So it is emotionally complicated when someone you know and respect does something slimy (and illegal) like this. It is one thing to flirt with too-young girls (at one point I'm sure I was one of them), and quite another thing to have child porn.
Anyone know what his sentence is? I couldn't access the court files.
follow my adventures at www.AppalachianToAlpine.blogspot.com!
Also curious as to why it took five months to post it here...
It's true, which is probably why he admitted to it.
My interpretation of Wexie's reply is that we don't know what sort of child pornography this was or how he obtained it.
He could have downloaded porn in bulk and not realized what it contained. He could have gone searching for it. It could have been images of girls who are 17, but look like they are in their 20s or it could have been pre-pubescent girls.
We don't know. To me that makes it harder to judge him.
Sex crime laws are tricky busy for sure! At some point, they gotta write something down on the book, and it can appear random, even insane.
I have the most basic of rape breakdowns for NY State that I use with my staff. Basically a relationship with a 3 years age difference...that lasts say 4 years...goes from being a felony to a misdemeanor, to a different level felony, to legal IIRC (I don't have the materials in front of me). Crazy stuff.
Someone with a legal background can elucidate for us/me but it all has a lot to do with the circumstances of the case.
But your example, particularly in your State (NY), ain't a good one. It's not accurate to say they are often treated the same...unless by that you mean "to be borderline completely ignored by the legal system". :O
First, adjust the age down a year as 17 IS the age of consent here. A 16 year old with a 19 year old is not going anywhere legally (unless you have another factor at work here, like force). Note: that doesn't stop angry/upset parents from claiming they are pressing charges.
Now, a 16 yr old with a 40 yr old? That may go somewhere legally. But it "helps" for lack of a better word if there are other factors i.e., Joey did about 6 month in Nassau County Jail. That would not have happened if Amy hadn't shot his wife in the head.
I'm not sure what my point is here lol I guess 1) laws can seem random 2) your example wasn't the strongest, 3) most instances are either not reported or go nowhere legally, and 4) I would make a terrible attorney.
Hoya/RubyMae, help!
I'll give you an example. A very close friend of mine's mother was a junkie and father can hardly be considered a human being. Not only did he he take and distribute pornographic pictures of her for most of her childhood, he would pass her around to his friends while they were watching football games. To this day, she won't let anyone take a picture of her.
You then have the issue of famous "artistic" photographers who have taken nudes of children and society has to debate whether it is child pornography or not. See here for example.
Then you have a 16 year old girl topless on a beach in Europe in public. If someone took a picture of that, is it child pornography? Should you go to jail for possessing the imagery when you can go to a beach in Europe and see it in person? If you can't go to jail in Europe for that picture should you go to jail in the US for it?
Should teens who send naked pictures of themselves and send them to a boyfriend or girlfriend be arrested for child pornography?
Etc., etc., etc.
Pretty sure it's because of the sensitivity of the case and the fact that it is rather personal. Even if it came out 5 months ago, I'm not sure if the support or alienation from the lindy community would have made any difference in this case either way...
Honestly, I think they should arrest teenagers for sending naked pictures of themselves to each other. It's illegal. It's illegal for a reason - it's child pornography. It doesn't matter that the teenagers didn't know it was illegal.
It's illegal to possess and produce child pornography. It doesn't matter if the child produced it him or her self.
The reason I think it shouldn't matter is because those texted pictures get forwarded. It doesn't take many forwards before those pictures are child pornography in the hands of strangers.
Has he been convicted of anything? He's innocent until proven guilty of course.
Glen
Eff, the problem are these laws are different on a state by state basis. I have read and seen (documentary stories ) about cases exactly what I'm talking about.
There are plenty of cases where a 19 year old guy gets arrested for having sex with his 16 or 17 year old girlfriend. One case I watched was this kid/guy who served a short stay in prison. He wound up marrying the girl. They have a beautiful family. He has never been in trouble before or after this particular case. Yet he still has to go down and register as a sex offender. Interviews with the prosecutor and the appropriateness of this comes down to "Well, the law is the law." Which I think is a ridiculous response.
Our understanding is that he has been found guilty and is about to begin his sentence.
Thanks everyone for your sensitivity in this discussion.
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You make a good point. And I have no problem with it being against the law, per se. But I do not think they should be treated as adults who commit the same act.
Well, needless to say, it looks like Bill wont be teaching any classes to minors any time soon.
Needless to say, Bill won't be teaching any classes to anybody any time soon. Which is quite a loss to the lindy community.
That's not actually true.
Drawings/cartoons of people involved in sex acts that appear to be underage is also legally considered child porn, even if they were completely the product of someone's imagination. The law makes no distinction.
Similarly, artistic (non-pornographic) nudes of underage people are also generally considered child porn under the law. Some refer to it as "softcore" porn, but as others have mentioned morally it's extremely subjective whether or not it is porn at all. Legally however, they simply paint anything gray over with black to be safe.
Are pictures of underage girls in the underwear section of department store sales flyers, porn?
Also see Waxie's story of minors taking pictures of themselves and getting charged with creating and distributing child porn for it. It's kind of silly to argue you can be inappropriate with yourself.
The long and the short of it: Why child porn is illegal is far more complex then simply that minors are usually (but by no means always) exploited and victimized to create it.
There is a huge array of material that easily could have gotten Bill in trouble for child porn in the US, yet many (most?) people wouldn't even consider to be pornographic (including most other countries). This is something that without knowing much more of the details can't be judged honestly. Unless the court documents themselves give graphic descriptions of the evidence, they won't be a lot of help either. And because of the nature of the crime, it's impossible for any of us to see the evidence without ourselves breaking the same law.
In the end there are far more non-evil ways Bill might have ended up in this situation then evil. The law doesn't really care either way, so simply that he was convicted under the law is of no real help in passing a moral judgment. Without very specific details it's impossible to know what the real story is.
My understanding is that this is exactly the kind of case for which the presidential pardon was created.
Unfortunately, for any law there are always borderline cases which many people might not consider to be morally reprehensible but which are still considered illegal. Without further details, we don't know whether we are talking about a borderline case here or not. On one day, it can be illegal to have sex with someone, the next day (which happens to be that person's 17th birthday for example), it's legal. Perhaps those types of things are taken into consideration in the sentencing.
***************************** Hot rhythm stimulates me! *****************************
If he lives.
you just got to listen to the music, 'cause it's talkin' to you man! -frankie http://www.zazzle.com/anarchyforpresident
Well, once he's done with his sentence, he may be able to teach adults. I'm assuming that it would be a violation of his parole to teach minors.
We should be careful to judge Bill as a person. Whereas a crime is a crime, there can be various reasons why an individual wound up breaking the law. We don't know the nature of the photos (and I'm not saying that we should find out), for all I know they could be of legal adults who appeared to be underage to the cops, lawyers, and the judge. Perhaps Bill truly believed they were adults, or maybe he believed they weren't, that we can't know for sure. Like it or not there is that gray area of human physical development where teens can be mistaken for 20-somethings, and 20-somethings for teens. And with it, are the varying perceptions among us of what does and not and does not look like an adult (as defined by whatever state you happen to be in, yet another level of complication). Do we even know how many images/vids were found on his laptop?
On the other hand, if the photos were of underage children, or if they weren't but Bill thought they were, well, that's pretty cut and dry. I say we should be very careful in choosing to demonize Bill or distance him from the dance community. Not because he is has been a vital member of the Lindy scene, but because we don't know all the facts. And if he does have a problem, I say we should not shun him for it, instead we should compassionately give him the space to rebuild himself and his life. I'm not advocating, "let's throw this under the rug and pretend it never happened," I say we should not assume he's up there with serial pedophiles. From what I understand (and I'll admit, it is not much, so correct me if I'm wrong) those who are predisposed to engaging with child porn (and even acts of pedophilia) have had traumas in their past that compel them to seek out this stimuli (even the pedophiles). Unless we have sufficient reason to suspect he will be an actual danger to others in the scene, I believe there is no reason to extricate him from the dance community.
More and more of this is coming out because, quite frankly, the days of the Internet being the "Wild Wild West" are over. Internet providers, police, and the Feds can track what you are doing and have a record of what is on your hard drive, cell phone, etc.
An acquaintance of mine is up the river for 40 years. Like the defendant in this thread, he was known to be crude, politically incorrect, and coarse. But my acquaintance was one of the "sexters." Only he was overage and the people on the witness list were underage.
The Feds nailed him to the wall when he wouldn't cop on a rape plea, and he's paying the price today.
"Unless we have sufficient reason to suspect he will be an actual danger to others in the scene..."
By sufficient reason, you mean like being found guilty by a jury of his peers? Or is that not good enough?
Where are all the annoying people with children when I finally need them??
There isn't any "parole" in the federal system, just terms of supervised release. Whether he can have any contact with actual minors could be a condition of his supervised release, if his sentence included any.
I haven't looked at the court documents and - as in most cases - the details of the plea bargain aren't public. So, again, we don't know.
Speaking as someone who worked for a judge who had to sentence people, I can say that there is a significant difference between someone whose offense is possession of images with no prior history of offense, and someone whose offense is actual sexual abuse of a minor.
Yes, 7and8, they're both inappropriate. One of them is more inappropriate. Also true - those who can or would possess images may but do not always proceed to actual sexual abuse. Treating the former the same as the latter makes no sense from a criminal justice standpoint and is, in fact, a large part of the reason "sex offender registries" are not particularly effective.
"Unless we have sufficient reason to suspect he will be an actual danger to others in the scene, I believe there is no reason to extricate him from the dance community."
Once he is done with whatever his sentence is (I don't know), he may have to extricate himself so as not to violate his parole.
Just curious, does anyone know if the state of Michigan requires people who are convicted on child porn charges to register with the state as sex offenders? They do in some states.
This particular case is federal.
I don't think it'll matter what Michigan's requirements are unless Bill moves there. Registration requirements are tied to residence.
I am terribly saddened by the stance that some have taken on here. Any time there is clear evidence of inappropriate behavior with a minor, whether in pictures or physically, there is no reason why I could see them being safe to have around children.
I was around when Mo took advantage of people. I was asking questions all the time. He made innapropriate advances towards my wife(we were dating then) and many other "younger looking" girls as well.
It's one thing to be accusing people of serious crimes with no proof.... It's entirely another when there is clear evidence and that person is going to trial or already convicted. I think some have lost sight of the fact that this is an issue in this community that should be carefully watched out for. Many of us have seen the creepy guy who gets touchy feely with people.
I'm not talking witch-hunt or embarassing people. Just being aware and cautious.
I agree Bird. This isn't the first instance of these types of issues (Mo, Eddie Reed), and it wont be the last.
Hear hear. Excellent post, Bird.
People have been been throwing around a lot of hypotheticals about how unfair sex laws are, etc. But by that rationale it's just as likely that Bill had a massive library of illegal forced sex videos of 8 year olds in the third world or he was part of a child porn ring like on SVU. The speculation and hypotheticals go both ways.
All we know is that he's a convicted federal felon. And I dunno, to me that's enough to shun him. I mean, if not a child porn conviction, then what is the brightline where I can finally judge someone? That's a pretty major hurdle to not judge somebody.
And it is important to make these judgments. People get hurt and become victims when their communities fail to notice the signs because they're too timid to judge. This is first and foremost a wakeup call.
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