Arizona's "Revenge Porn" bill apparently applies to far more than actual revenge porn

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for bans on so-called "revenge porn." I even spared the internet some potentially embarrassing photos I took with my ex-wife after our breakup. (You should all be thankful for that.) But you would think that someone, somewhere in that 90-person legislative body (91 if you count that idiot Jan Brewer), someone would have proofread the bill before they passed it. This is just more proof that when you add three letters to any bill, S, E, and X, in that order, a spell of Enfeeblement is cast over the legislature and bills pass without a single thought. But hey, it stops revenge porn so that's good, right? What could POSSIBLY go wrong with a hastily passed bill passed by emotional appeals? Read on...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-national-security-technology-and-liberty/arizonas-naked-photo-law-makes-free-speech

Arizona’s Naked Photo Law Makes Free Speech a Felony

09/23/2014

Freedom of Expression

By Lee Rowland, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 12:24pm

Which of the following could land you a felony conviction in Arizona?

• Showing images of naked prisoners tortured at Abu Ghraib;
• Linking to the iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of “Napalm Girl,” showing an unclothed Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack;
• Sharing a close-up photo of a woman’s breast with a breastfeeding support group;
• Waving a friend over to see a cute naked baby pic — like the one you see on this page.

Unfortunately, the answer is all of the above. That’s because Arizona recently passed a law that makes it a felony — and potentially a sex offense — to share any image of nudity or sexuality before you get consent from every person pictured.

Protecting personal privacy is, without doubt, a laudable goal. Indeed, the ACLU works tirelessly to protect your private data. But Arizona’s “nude photo law” is a seriously misguided attempt to achieve that goal. This new crime is broad and confusing. It applies to anyone who shares a nude image, not just to bad actors who intentionally invade another’s privacy. A prosecutor need not demonstrate that a person had an expectation of privacy in an image before charging you with a crime for sharing it. And the law applies equally to a private person’s hacked naked photo and a beautiful nude at a photography exhibit — because the law’s breadth encompasses truly newsworthy, artistic, and historical images.

As a result, the nude photo law creates bizarre and troubling burdens on speech fully protected by the First Amendment.

For proof that this law goes way too far and criminalizes innocent and valuable speech, you need look no further than the august group of bookstores, newspapers, photographers, publishers, and librarians that challenged the law together today (web page on case and complaint). Many of them belong to our stalwart First Amendment allies at the Media Coalition, whose members include the plaintiff associations of publishers, librarians and booksellers. Represented by the ACLU and Dentons US LLP, the plaintiffs just want to be able to offer books, art, news, and history without risking a criminal conviction in Arizona. That doesn’t seem too much to ask.

Proponents of the law indicated that it was intended to address the harms of “revenge porn” — a digital phenomenon typified by a scorned lover who maliciously posts private images of an ex online, often alongside her personal details. The harms of such conduct can be very real, and they predominately impact women. There are true horror stories about women who have suffered extreme humiliation and harassment, had intimate photos sent to relatives and coworkers, and lost job opportunities.

States can address these harms without treading on free speech, if and only if those laws are tailored to addressing malicious invasions of privacy. Arizona’s is not. And we’re not going to blindly trust that the government will apply this broad law responsibly, only against the “bad guys.” The photo above literally illustrates why.

One of the plaintiffs in our lawsuit, the Voice Media Group, publishes the newsweekly Phoenix New Times. The New Times published a series of images from a local art show by Arizona artist and Arizona State University Professor Betsy Schneider. One of the images from that art show is the great image above – documenting a month in Schneider’s infant son’s life.

Maricopa County publicly considered opening a police investigation into the New Times’ publications of these images, after police requested an investigation. A Phoenix city attorney told the press that if the photos were found to be illegal, “Everybody who picked up one those issues [of the New Times] could be prosecuted for possessing child pornography.” That’s what can happen when law enforcement officials wield problematic laws as broadly as they’re written.

The First Amendment just doesn’t permit that kind of carelessness. Laws meant to address real horrors need to do just that – without serving as Trojan Horses that erode our hallowed free speech rights.

Withholding sex and not listening to your lover's feelings count as "sexual violence" at the U. of Michigan

Michigan's football program isn't the only embarrassment to the University of Michigan these days. It seems UM has published a rather strange set of definitions of sexual violence which includes "withholding sex" and "discounting your partner's feelings." So we've reached a catch-22. If you don't have sex you're a sexual assaulter. If you don't talk enough about sex you're a sexual assaulter. If you talk TOO MUCH sex you're a sex assaulter. If you want sex too much you're an assaulter.

Whoever wrote these definitions must also be calling the plays for the Wolverines these days.

http://hr.umich.edu/stopabuse/resources/definitions.html

Physical violence

Includes pushing, shoving, pulling, shaking, slapping, biting, hitting, punching, kicking, strangling, throwing objects at partner, restraining, throwing the partner, use of weapons at hand like a frying pan or broom, or use of conventional weapons such as a gun or knife. Some of these examples may be used by the survivor in self-defense (like use of items at hand) and do not constitute domestic violence or abuse.

Sexual violence

Examples of sexual violence include: discounting the partner's feelings regarding sex; criticizing the partner sexually; touching the partner sexually in inappropriate and uncomfortable ways; withholding sex and affection; always demanding sex; forcing partner to strip as a form of humiliation (maybe in front of children), to witness sexual acts, to participate in uncomfortable sex or sex after an episode of violence, to have sex with other people; and using objects and/or weapons to hurt during sex or threats to back up demands for sex.

Economic abuse

Examples of economic abuse include: requiring partner to account for every penny of household or other funds; withholding money from partner; putting partner on an impossible "budget;" denying partner access to any checking account or credit cards; taking partner's paycheck and controlling access to it; denying necessities of life to partner and children; having own checking and savings account unknown to partner.

Verbal or psychological abuse

Examples of psychological abuse include: insulting the partner; ignoring the partner's feelings; withholding approval as a form of punishment; yelling at the partner; labeling the partner with terms like "crazy," "stupid;" blaming the partner for all his troubles; putting down the partner's abilities as lover, parent, worker; demanding constant attention and showing resentment to children; telling the partner about his affairs or that she must stay with him because she can't make it on her own. All of the examples under "threats" are also included.

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/19448/

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: WITHHOLDING SEX, DISCOUNTING FEELINGS ARE ‘SEXUAL VIOLENCE’
by DEREK DRAPLIN - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

Examples of abuse listed on the University of Michigan’s domestic violence awareness website say “sexual violence” includes “withholding sex and affection” and “discounting the partner’s feelings regarding sex” – definitions that have come under fire by some men’s rights activists.

The terms, found under the heading “definitions,” also suggest verbal or psychological abuse include: “insulting the partner; ignoring the partner’s feelings; withholding approval as a form of punishment; yelling at the partner; labeling the partner with terms like crazy [and] stupid.”

Janet Bloomfield, social media director for “A Voice For Men,” an activist group that counters feminist extremism and misandry, took aim at these University of Michigan examples, first on her Twitter account over the summer and more recently in an email to The College Fix.tweet

“These kinds of policies contribute to an increasing level of sexual misconduct hysteria and essentially create a chilling climate for young men,” Bloomfield said. “When things like ‘withholding sex’ and ‘ignoring a partner’s feelings’ are framed as a pattern of behavior that is abusive, they are not only pathologizing normal relationship behaviors, but they are opening the door for vindictive or spurned partners to make allegations that can have profound effects for the accused.”

Currently the higher education world is gripped by the so-called campus rape culture, in which the widely touted yet largely unsubstantiated stat that one in five women will be sexually assaulted or raped while in college is oft repeated during mandated sexual assault seminars at universities nationwide.

On the University of Michigan website, it lists various definitions of abuse as created by a campus coalition called “The University of Abuse Hurts Initiative,” a 2009 undertaking that aimed to stop abuse among students and the campus community.

Its goal is “promoting prevention of and effective response to domestic or intimate partner and sexual violence,” with the tagline: “Abuse Hurts: Recognize. Respond. Refer.”

But interspersed within the typical definitions of abuse – “pushing, shoving, pulling, shaking, slapping, biting, hitting, punching, kicking, strangling, throwing objects at partner, restraining, throwing the partner, use of weapons” – the other examples, such as “discounting the partner’s feelings regarding sex … criticizing the partner sexually … withholding sex and affection,” are found.

Also included in the definition of sexual violence is the example of having “sex with other people.” 

The campaign also gives examples of what’s considered to be “verbal or psychological abuse,” including:  “insulting the partner; ignoring the partner’s feelings; withholding approval as a form of punishment; yelling at the partner; labeling the partner with terms like ‘crazy,’ ‘stupid.’”

It’s not unheard of for sexual violence to be defined so loosely within a campus community.

“Sexual violence is anything that makes someone feel unsafe; it could be catcalls, peer pressure to act a certain way in a situation, verbal harassment and unwanted touching. Many of these things occur daily without anyone giving a second thought to them,” Jami Coughler, program coordinator for the Brock University Student Sexual Violence Support Centre, told the Canada-based campus newspaper this week.

The University of Chicago, on its website, defines an abuser as someone who “has a strong belief in extreme gender roles” and “is jealous and possessive” among more typical forms of abuse listed.

But other campuses only list the generally understood definition of sexual violence on their websites, such as Oregon State University, which defines it as “any non-consensual sexual act. This includes rape, sexual assault, relationship violence, stalking, child sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, sexual harassment, unwanted sexual touching, and attempts of any of these acts.”

As for the definitions given by the University of Michigan, asked by The College Fix whether they are extreme and erroneous, campus spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said they stand when taken in a larger context. 

“The definitions of behaviors of violence … describe most accurately what occurs in an abusive relationship,” he said in an email. “Those behaviors not in the context of violence are not abusive.  A reader of this site would recognize that it’s described as one behavior in the context of a pattern of behaviors to maintain power and control over an intimate partner.”

Bloomfield has a different take on what readers will “recognize” when perusing the website.

“Using the exact same logic and method of reasoning deployed by UMich – namely, that readers will recognize the behaviors within a larger pattern of behaviors – readers will also recognize that victims are implicitly female and perpetrators are male – even though the policy does not explicitly state that,” she said, adding such extreme examples essentially label normal relationship behavior “abuse” and throw men under the bus.

“Normal relationship behaviors are pathologized and framed as abuse when MEN do them,” she noted. “I am unaware of a single case in which the accused student is a woman and the victim is a man.”

As for the topic of the campus rape epidemic, she said she believes campuses are whipping up “rape hysteria” for a variety of reasons.

“It comes down to this: colleges are creating rape hysteria so college employees who run these sexual assault centers can keep their jobs and benefits. Women are encouraged to interpret normal sexual and relationship behaviors as abuse and encouraged to have the young men they are partnering with sanctioned by the college,” she said.

“The end result is that college campuses are becoming increasingly hostile to men and colleges that enact their ‘kangaroo courts and policies’ to deal with sexual misconduct are opening themselves to huge liabilities when the accused and sanctioned men take their claims into a real court and sue for damages,” she added. “They tend to win once due process and the requirement for evidence beyond a reasonable doubt is restored. “

A Voice for Men maintains an ongoing list of such cases. One such lawsuit is pending against the University of Michigan, in which a 21-year-old engineering major claims campus administrators refused to fully consider any of the evidence which he says proves his innocence.

Fitzgerald said the abuse definitions on the website are not used to arbitrate campus sexual assault claims.

The University of Michigan Wagon Wheel of Abuse

Nicole Pelletier: Proof standards for social workers and Navy servicewomen are very, very low

So how did a crazy lady who breaks into a home to punch an elderly man get a job as a social worker, much less be enrolled in the military? Just how low are entry standards for these two jobs these days? Maybe she was one of the soldiers guarding Abu Ghraib?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/mom-beat-neighbor-busted-for-child-porn-897561

Cops: Mom Beat Neighbor Busted For Child Porn
Man attacked when he came home after posting bond

SEPTEMBER 25--A mother of two children was arrested after she entered the apartment of a neighbor and punched him in the face because she was incensed that he returned to the Massachusetts residence after being arrested for possession of child pornography.

Nicole Pelletier, a Navy veteran, was busted Monday evening after allegedly attacking Gary Spring, 61, inside his condominium in Danvers, a town 20 miles north of Boston. Pelletier, a licensed clinical social worker, was charged with assault and battery and breaking and entering.

According to a court filing, the 41-year-old Pelletier entered Spring’s apartment through the unlocked front door around midnight and confronted him as he was getting out of bed. “Before he could react she struck him in the face with her hand,” police noted. Spring, a former Merrimack College professor, lives directly below Pelletier and her children, a 13-year-old girl and 11-year-old boy.

Upon arriving at the condo complex, a cop spotted Pelletier walking down the stairs “crying and visibly upset.” She had blood on her hands and right arm. “I went into his apartment and hit him,” Pelletier reportedly confessed. Spring, who suffered a bloody nose, declined medical treatment.

Pelletier, pictured above, herself called 911 to report the assault, telling a police operator that she wanted to kill Spring, cops reported.

Pelletier confronted Spring hours after he was released on $30,000 bond from federal custody. Spring was arrested by FBI agents following a two-month probe that began after Merrimack College officials detected child porn images on a laptop provided to Spring.

PA Sen. Pat Toomey sounds official Predator Panic button in time for school

I'm not surprised to see a fluff bill in the national legislature. I'm not personally concerned with stopping a background check bill where most schools run background checks anyways. Nor am I even concerned that Sen. Toomey uses some dubious stats in his speech, failing to mention the fact that his examples are of people who would have passed background checks in the first place. Nor am I surprised that the case that inspired the bill would NOT have been saved by the acts in the bill (Edgar Friedrichs Jr had no record because he was never charged with past wrongdoing). But when you make a statement that "predators are getting their prey" because a national background check bill has not passed, THAT, my friend, is Shiitake-Worthy.

http://www.trentonian.com/general-news/20140909/lawmakers-urge-senate-to-act-on-sex-predator-bill

Lawmakers urge Senate to act on sex predator bill

POSTED: 09/09/14, 6:15 PM EDT | 0 COMMENTS

WASHINGTON (AP) — A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania on Tuesday called on the Senate to pass a bill to keep sexual predators out of schools, saying added security checks on teachers, coaches and bus drivers are needed to protect students from potential harm.

Toomey, a Republican, is co-sponsoring a bill with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., that would require states that receive federal education funds to conduct periodic background checks. It also seeks to bar schools from hiring employees or contractors convicted of certain offenses, such as any violent or sexual crime against a child or drug and assault-related crimes committed within five years.

The House unanimously passed similar legislation last year. But the Senate bill remains unmoved in committee.

“Our children are back to school now. Predators are getting their prey now,” Toomey said. “The Senate needs to act now.” 

He was joined by U.S. Reps. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, who led efforts to pass the bill in the House, as well as an array of law enforcement and child advocacy groups.

Toomey cited statistics that since Jan. 1, more than 325 teachers and school employees have been arrested across the U.S. for sexual misconduct with children.

The legislation was prompted by the case of 12-year-old Jeremy Bell, who was raped and murdered in West Virginia in 1997. Edgar Friedrichs Jr. is now serving a life sentence in connection with the boy’s death. Toomey said Friedrichs had been dismissed by a school in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on suspicion of sexual misconduct. That school then helped Friedrichs land a new teaching job in West Virginia.

The measure has drawn some concern from educators, who say it may violate their privacy. Some Republicans have also expressed concern that the bill amounts to a federal mandate and that states should take the lead on education issues.

AL: Madison Co. Schools try to set up an entrapment sting but ends up setting up an alleged rape

What do you do when the people entrusted to educate your kids are blithering idiots? I wonder if these "edumacators" got the idea from that idiotic Dateline NBC show, TCAP. If you can't trust police with conducting a proper sting, then how reasonable is a plot where school officials hire a mentally handicapped girl to be bait for a potential rapist?

http://fox13now.com/2014/09/20/plan-to-use-teen-as-bait-leads-to-rape-at-school-lawsuit-alleges/

Plan to use teen as bait leads to rape at school in Alabama, lawsuit alleges

POSTED 7:37 PM, SEPTEMBER 20, 2014, BY CNN WIRE, UPDATED AT 07:41PM, SEPTEMBER 20, 2014

By Victor Blackwell

CNN

(CNN) — It’s an unimaginable horror. A 14-year-old girl with special needs allegedly was raped at school after a teacher’s aide persuaded her to act as bait to catch an accused sexual predator, a fellow student.

“It has essentially devastated her life,” attorney Eric Artrip — who represents the girl and her father — said of the alleged January 2010 incident.

The Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education filed an amicus brief Wednesday supporting her family’s federal lawsuit against the Madison County School Board in Alabama.

An amicus brief is a legal argument offered to the court by someone who is not a party to the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta will decide whether to accept the argument.

“School administrators knew the student’s extensive history of sexual and violent misconduct and were alerted to the substantial risk he posed” to other students, according to the brief.

About a week before the alleged rape, Sparkman Middle School vice principals Jeanne Dunaway and Teresa Terrell received a complaint that the boy had touched a female student inappropriately and was assigned in-school suspension, according to federal attorneys.

A few days later, June Simpson, a teacher’s aide at the Huntsville-area school, told the principal, Ronnie Blair, that the boy had “repeatedly tried to convince girls to have sex with him in the boys’ bathroom on the special needs students’ corridor” and had actually had sex with one student, according to the brief.

The boy and his alleged sexual partner denied having sex in the bathroom, but Simpson recommended the boy be “constantly monitored,” according to the brief. Blair said the boy could not be punished because he had not been “caught in the act,” the brief reads.

School policy requires allegations of student-on-student misconduct be substantiated.

Trying to “catch him in the act”

On January 22, 2010, the boy approached a 14-year-old girl with special needs who had already declined his “recent, repeated propositions” for sex, according to the brief.

“She was not physically or mentally handicapped, although she does qualify for special education classes,” Artrip told CNN.

When the girl told Simpson, she encouraged the girl to “meet (the boy) in the bathroom where teachers could be positioned to ‘catch him in the act’ before anything happened,” according to the brief.

The girl initially refused, but then agreed, according to Artrip.

Simpson and the girl went to Dunaway’s office to explain the plan. Dunaway “did not respond with any advice or directive,” according to the brief.

“If this was problematic for the administration it would have been better to express that on the front end instead of the back end,” said attorney McGriff Belser III, who represents Simpson.

The girl left Dunaway’s office, found the boy in the hallway, and “agreed to meet for sex,” according to the brief.

“Something went wrong,” said Artrip.

Instead of meeting in the boys’ bathroom on the special needs students’ corridor, the boy told the girl to meet him in the sixth-grade boys’ bathroom, in another part of the school, according to the brief.

“No teachers were in the bathroom to intervene,” the brief reads.

“She stalled for time. She continually tried to fight him off but ultimately was anally raped by this young man,” Artrip told CNN.

“It was evident that this had been a severe trauma for her,” said Artrip.

Police were called and the girl was taken to the National Children’s’ Advocacy Center in Huntsville, where a rape kit was taken, Artrip told CNN.

Medical personnel found evidence of trauma “consistent with (the girl) being sodomized.” The boy claimed he had only kissed her, according to the brief.

Attorneys: Boy had a long history of serious misconduct

The girl was uncommunicative after the incident, Artrip said. The district attorney in Madison County investigated the incident, but with a victim who was unable or unwilling to talk about the incident, the office didn’t think they had a good case, and did not pursue it.

Even after viewing photographs of the girl’s injuries, vice principal Terrell “testified that she didn’t know whether (the girl) had consented to the assault,” according to the brief.

The school listed the alleged rape as “inappropriate touching a female in boys’ bathroom,” on the student’s computerized disciplinary report. He was suspended for five days and sent to an alternative school, but later returned to Sparkman after about 20 days, according to the brief.

Vice principal Dunaway testified that the girl was responsible for herself once she entered the bathroom, according the brief.

DoJ and DoE attorneys claim the boy had a long history of sexual and other misconduct in school and Sparkman Middle School administrators knew it. Several pages of the 126-page brief detail years of disciplinary problems.

The boy had been involved in 15 violent or sex-related proven incidents of misconduct before the alleged rape, according to the brief.

Federal attorneys say details about the severity of the incidents are unavailable because school administrators shredded the boy’s disciplinary files.

The girl’s father filed the federal lawsuit in October 2010 against the boy, the three administrators, the teacher’s aide and the Madison County School Board.

“We felt, (that) the teacher putting her into this position, because of the policy as interpreted by the school board and the principal, violated Title IX,” Artrip told CNN.

Title IX is a federal law aimed at ending sexual discrimination in education. In part, it dictates how schools that receive federal funds must respond to claims of sexual harassment.

In 2010, a district court judge allowed the father’s claims of state violations, including negligence, against Simpson and Dunaway, while dropping the boy from the lawsuit because he was a minor. The judge tossed out the federal claims — that the school district violated Title IX and that Simpson and school administrators deprived the girl of her civil rights.

Both sides have appealed.

Fighting for a jury trial

According to the rare amicus brief, written in part by an attorney with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the school, in its capacity as a recipient of federal funds is “liable for [its] deliberate indifference to known acts of peer sexual harassment.”

On the same day the federal brief was submitted, the Women’s Law Center, joined by 32 national and local organizations, submitted a joint brief supporting the family’s lawsuit. Earlier this month, the National Women’s Law Center and Artrip submitted a joint brief to the Eleventh Circuit.

Artrip told CNN his client deserves her day in court and a jury should weigh in on the Madison County District’s requirement of substantiation of allegations of student-on-student misconduct.

“We hope that the attention that this case is getting will spur a movement on these kinds of policies so that a girl can simply report sexual harassment without having a need to bring a witness with her or roll up her shirt and show bruises,” Artrip told CNN.

The girl was withdrawn from Sparkman Middle School and underwent extensive counseling. She went to live with her mother in North Carolina, but her mother died soon after. Instead of moving back to Huntsville, she and her brother were placed with Child Protective Services in North Carolina, the attorney said.

Geraldine Tibbs, the head of public relations for the Madison County Board of Education, said the board and school officials “are confident that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will rule in favor of the Board and the administrators.”

“Our attorneys recommend that we not discuss ongoing litigation,” she said.

Ronnie Blair and Teresa Terrell are still principal and vice principal at Sparkman Middle School.

Jeanne Dunaway is now principal at Madison County Elementary School.

June Simpson resigned shortly after the incident.

“My client has gone from being a teacher’s aide to being a scapegoat,” said Simpson’s attorney.

When asked why his client thought it was a good idea to use a special needs teen as bait to catch a suspected attacker, Besler told CNN, “I don’t personally think it is a good idea. The events of this case have shown us that it was not.”

The-CNN-Wire

™ & © 2014 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

Texass Sheriff's deputy takes naked pictures of Registered Citizens because "It's the law"

When I first got the news, the tagline read "Florida," not "Texas." I can understand the confusion; after all, Florida is usually the state that gives us stories such as this one.  I guess you can say this was not a "Wise" choice.

http://www.wcmessenger.com/2014/news/officer-arrested-for-photos-of-sex-offender/

Officer arrested for photos of sex offender
By Brian Knox | Published Saturday, September 13, 2014

(Un-)Wise Co. TX Sheriff's Office--
Sgt. Chad Hightower

{{platinum}}}This article contains descriptions that may be offensive to some readers.

A longtime officer at the Wise County Sheriff’s Office has been arrested for improper photography related to convicted sex offenders.

Chad Alan Hightower, 41, of Boyd was charged Friday morning with improper photography or visual recording. He was released after posting $25,000 bond.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit filed by Texas Ranger Ron Pettigrew, Hightower forced a male sex offender to strip naked and be photographed.

The victim came forward and related what had happened to District Attorney Investigator Jack McGuinn. He told McGuinn that after he was released from prison in June, he was required to register as a sex offender. On June 17, he met with Hightower to complete the paperwork, and was told nude photos would need to be taken.

“Deputy Hightower represented this as a change in the sex offender registration required by the state,” the affidavit states.

The victim was taken to a bathroom in the sheriff’s office lobby where he stripped naked, and Hightower took “several photographs from all sides” before telling the victim he could get dressed and leave, the affidavit states.

A month later, the victim had to meet with Hightower again to update his sex offender information. He was told the photos were defective due to a glare, and more would need to be taken. The two got into Hightower’s county vehicle and drove to the county’s impound yard on Farm Road 51 South in Decatur.

There, the statement alleges, Hightower directed the victim into the impound office where he once again was photographed in the nude. The two were the only ones in the building at that time.

“After a short time, Deputy Hightower reportedly advised (the victim) he believed the next thing the State was going to require was photographs of a sex offender’s erect penis,” the affidavit states. “Deputy Hightower asked (the victim) if he could obtain an erection for him, so that the needed photographs could be taken and (the victim) would not have to return in the future for them.”

The victim said he declined the request and was asked an additional “three or four times” before he was told to get dressed. The two returned to the sheriff’s office, and the victim went home.

McGuinn asked the victim to describe the impound office, and he was able to describe details that would only be known by someone who had been inside.

Surveillance video from the sheriff’s office lobby show Hightower with a camera with the victim with actions that are “consistent with (the victim’s) description of events,” according to the affidavit.

Pettigrew was able to collect the SD cards from Hightower’s county camera. Using the assistance of a forensic investigator, images that had been deleted were recovered. Among the images are several that appear to be the victim standing naked against a wood panel wall located in the impound office.

“Pettigrew noted on the above-mentioned media there are several more nude males that appear to be in the same bathroom (the victim) described, others are in the county impound office and yet more in what appears to be a residence,” the affidavit states.

Responding to Pettigrew’s questions, the victim confirmed that Hightower locked the gate of the impound yard behind them. He also said that he would not have consented to the nude photos if Hightower was not a police officer, and he felt compelled to submit to the photographs due to Hightower’s law enforcement position and being told it was state law.

Wise County Sheriff David Walker said he was shocked to learn what took place.

“It’s a shock and a sad day for all of us, especially me, because I have worked with Chad my entire law enforcement career,” Walker said.

Hightower started in 1992 as a dispatcher, became a deputy at the Wise County Sheriff’s Office in 1998 and was promoted to sergeant in 2004, according to a Wise County Messenger feature story on him in July 2011.

Walker said Hightower put in his papers to retire several weeks ago and is on leave until his retirement on Sept. 30.