Falsely Accused of Pedophilia
News Source
Kevin Alfred Strom is absolutely innocent of any crime against
children or anyone else. He has paid a heavy price for his advocacy
of self-determination for his people.
by Kevin Alfred Strom
http://www.kevinalfredstrom.com/2009/01/kevin-alfred-strom-address-to-the-court/
given at Federal District Court, Charlottesville, Virginia on April
21, 2008; with annotations
MY NAME is Kevin Alfred Strom. I have been in solitary confinement
for sixteen months. Circumstances and strategic considerations have
kept me silent until now. But I have sworn to tell the whole truth,
so I ask the court to grant me now perhaps one minute for every
month I have been imprisoned.
All along I�ve told the truth to everyone � investigators, family
members, this court, my closest friends � about this case, even when
that truth was embarrassing to me or easily misconstrued to be used
against me.
Let me tell you a little about my background. For some 20 years, I
worked as a broadcast engineer. For three years, until I moved to
Virginia in 2001, I was the local chapter leader of the Family
Support Network, a parenting group. I�m a writer, a publisher, an
editor, a broadcaster � and an activist for social change who�s
taken on some powerful interest groups, armed only with a microphone
and a pen. But more than anything else, I�m a father.
The greatest title of honor I�ve ever been given is �Daddy.�
My Children
My son Oliver[1] is fifteen, an honor student just embarking on his
high school years and all the changes that implies.
My daughter Vita is eleven, also an honor student and getting set to
graduate to middle school.
My younger son Alfred is thirteen and severely autistic. He has made
some progress at a special school for autistic children, but in many
ways he lives in his own inner world. Victims of autism have trouble
relating to people, but often get very attached to one person in
their lives. In Alfred�s case, that person is me.
[1] (All minors named here have been given alternate names to
protect their identities.)
Some years ago, I lived in Virginia while my ex-wife, the children�s
mother, lived in Minnesota. I had to bear all the driving duties and
all the costs to maintain my parenting time under joint custody. My
parenting time was split into four periods every year.
I drove 1,250 miles to pick up the children, another 1,250 miles
back home for my time with them, another 1,250 miles to drop them
off, and then 1,250 miles back home again. And that�s for one trip.
Depending on school or other schedules, sometimes the driving time
was longer than the time at home with them. I was making that trip
between here and Minnesota sixteen times a year. I did that for six
years. It was worth every bit of effort. I love my children more
than my own soul.
Your honor, I am not a pedophile. I am the farthest thing imaginable
from a sexual pervert of any kind. I am in fact the precise opposite
of the way I have been characterized in this case. And I have never
sought out, purchased, enjoyed, or wanted child pornography of any kind.
Those who would in reality or fantasy violate the innocence of a
child disgust me. They are monsters, aberrations, contra naturam,
from whom the innocent need to be protected.
I am not a hateful person, your honor, but I do revile the foul
deeds of pedophiles and child pornographers. In my public and
private life I have exposed and condemned them, and opposed the
�normalization� of pedophilia now being pushed in some psychological
circles.
Sex and Love
I regard human sexuality not as a casual pleasure, nor as something
dirty, but rather as something sacred, something holy. It is the
means by which new souls are brought into the universe. This love of
our hearts and our bodies connects us to � actually physically
connects us to � the mysterious beginnings of all life, and to our
as yet unknown destiny. It is not to be spoken of lightly.
To me, sex, love, and family form a kind of natural trinity which
ought never to be sundered. I have long instinctively felt this way.
I believe in love. In my sexual life, I have been what one of my
friends calls �an absolute straight arrow.� In high school, some
called me a �Puritan� because I refused to participate in the
alcohol, recreational drugs, and recreational sex which were and are
so common. And I�ve remained true to my principles.
When the fates have blessed me with a sweetheart, I have always been
faithful to her, always and absolutely. I have loved imperfectly and
made innumerable mistakes, but I have loved with all my heart. And
the number of sweethearts I have had in 51 years of life can be
counted on the fingers of one hand.
Art and Beauty
Your honor, before it was all taken from me, my home was filled with
fine art: reproductions of the paintings of Maxfield Parrish, John
William Waterhouse, William Bouguereau; the sculptures of Rodin,
Houdon, St. Gaudens, Hiram Powers; and many others. I�m also a
photographer and a graphic artist myself in my role as editor. And I
operate a highly regarded online art gallery.
[Illustration] Cupid and Psyche - an example of the art collected
and displayed by Kevin Alfred Strom
I believe one of the greatest purposes of high art is to depict the
human form as an ideal of beauty and nobility. I believe that one of
the greatest tragedies of modern art is that it has abandoned the
Classical reverence for our natural form which, our ancestors
believed and so do I, partakes of the Divine.
I believe that whenever the human body is portrayed, that portrayal
should embody respect, nobility, beauty, and dignity � never
crudity, lasciviousness, or degradation; even, or perhaps
especially, when the erotic is part of that portrayal.
I do not like pornography. When in my life I have sought out the
erotic, I have never sought the gross, the crude, the pornographic.
I�d like to live in a society in which no one wanted pornography of
any kind. And I firmly believe that a revival of the Classical nude
in art, in the exquisite tradition that culminated near the end of
the 19th century, would go a very long way toward making all kinds
of pornography disappear.
How then did I come here before you?
The Erotic and the Pornographic
Now, I have enjoyed erotic � but not pornographic � photography
depicting beautiful young women. And my imprecisely-chosen words and
speculations[2] about those pictures have been used against me. But
the erotic photographs I actually sought out, on sites like
BodyInMind.com, have nothing to do with these charges � except to
the extent that my honest discussion of enjoying pictures of
�beautiful young girls� (all of them on sites where the models are
certified to be over eighteen) and words to that effect have been
edited and twisted beyond recognition in order to incriminate me.
[2] (Speculations encouraged by cynical JTTF interrogators and a
vengeful ex-spouse who surreptitiously recorded a marriage
counseling session, both of whom later edited the recordings to
remove the relevant context.)
In the presentencing report you will note that the number of images
involved in this �crime� is fewer than ten. I was not even allowed
to see these images, and then only briefly, until I was escorted to
the FBI evidence room on August 22, 2007, in the eighth month of my
imprisonment. At that time I and my lead attorney were able to view
the files along with their associated metadata, showing size, date
of last modification, and source, among other things.[3] Some of
them are on my hard drive as a result of my actions and some are
not. They break down as follows:
[3] (Except for one file downloaded and saved by my wife, which was
an artistic photograph of a young woman wearing an angel costume
which by no stretch of the imagination could be called pornographic,
I had never seen any of these images before that date. They had all
been deleted by me unseen when a picture forum was spammed, or were
just unwanted and never-saved garbage from popup ads or spam, and
were �recovered� by FBI/JTTF technicians.)
Only one of the charged files is even saved to the hard drive. All
the others were deleted or never saved and no one (except a forensic
investigator) could ever view them.
That one saved file was not saved by me. It was saved on a portion
of the hard drive reserved for backups made automatically of my wife
Elisha�s computer, and the file�s metadata confirm that it was in
fact downloaded originally by her.
Responsibility
More than half of the remaining charged files have �last modified�
dates after July 14, 2006 � the day I left my home to save my life
and my children�s lives from Elisha�s violence. I never had access
to that computer again after that date. I do not know exactly what
was done to download or alter those files after that July 14, but
one thing is sure: whoever did so was not I.[4]
By studying the metadata, I was able to determine that I was
responsible for the presence of the tiny number of remaining files.
Their source data shows that they came from an online forum I
remember visiting several years ago. It�s a photography forum
devoted to beautiful portraits, having nothing to do with sex or
even nudity. Many wonderful, creative photos have been posted there.
In fact, the rules of the forum prohibit the posting of any kind of
pornography there. But, practically speaking, anyone can post
anything there � and it will stay there until a moderator gets
around to removing it.
[4] (It�s worth noting that only two or three of the charged files
are in fact child pornography, and many are not even pornography at
all. One was obviously a banner ad for an adult porn site,
disgusting but not illegal, which prosecutors doubtlessly included
because of the revolting and lurid text (�Teen Rape!�) plastered
across the ad, which they falsely characterized as the �file name�
in the indictment. The real file name was numeric and would not have
made the desired impression on the public or the members of the
grand jury.)
The last time I visited the forum it was flooded with spam promoting
commercial pornography sites, with �sample� images some of which
showed models that were children. Though the spammers used various
tricks to evade the letter of the law (by blurring out genitals, for
example), these pictures nevertheless were by turns sleazy,
disgusting, and tragic. After seeing the first few images of the
many in the group, I deleted them all, mostly sight unseen. Every
image, of course, even the ones I never saw, left its trace on the
hard drive. I never returned to the forum again. These files I
�possessed� I possessed unwillingly.
Faith in God - an example of the art collected and displayed by
Kevin Alfred Strom
[Illustration] Faith in God - an example of the art collected and
displayed by Kevin Alfred Strom
Wanted and Unwanted; Beauty and Ugliness
To get a realistic picture of this affair, you must also comprehend
the scale involved. I am a heavy user of computer images, both
professionally and personally. There are more than 40,000 image
files on my computer related to my journalism work alone. There are
tens of thousands of family and Nature photographs � it�s nothing
for me to take 100 in a single day � and thousands of fine art scans
and images, book illustrations, and much more. I would estimate that
the number of image files on that computer at more than 100,000; so
many that I had to add several additional hard drives to the system.
Clearly, your honor, I know how to seek out, collect, and save huge
numbers of the images I�m really interested in.
Our lawmakers included something called the Affirmative Defense in
the child pornography statutes. It states that if the files in
question are deleted, and there are three or fewer, there can be no
prosecution.[5] It�s designed to protect inadvertent possessors from
prosecution, prison time, and the false characterization of being
labeled a �sex offender� for life. But prosecutors, even in the
flimsiest cases, can just inflate the number of charged files to
over three even if the files don�t meet the criteria, and thereby
evade the intent of the Affirmative Defense. And in these days of
high speed Internet connections and Web sites that commonly have 50
or hundreds of images on their opening pages, each of which leaves
its traces on your hard drive instantly, before it is even seen �
and even if it isn�t seen � I venture to suggest that the
Affirmative Defense no longer applies to anyone, even the most
inadvertent. Its intent was, clearly, to apply in cases precisely
like this one.
[5] (There are many cases on the record in which prosecutors refused
to prosecute even when thousands of the most horrifying and abusive
pornographic images of children were found on someone�s computer �
refused for the simple and quite valid reason that the person in
question did not have exclusive access to said computer. I never had
exclusive access to the computer in question in my case, and had no
access whatever to it after July 14, 2006. I leave it to the reader
to decide why I was treated differently.)
The Essential Element in the Case
In my work as a writer and publisher, I have taken on controversial
issues � foreign adventurism by the Bush administration, abuse of
the fundamental rights of European-Americans, and many more � and
made powerful enemies in high places. I have been a strong critic of
the loss of our liberties and the rise of the security/surveillance
state since 9/11.
In particular, I have published and written dozens of expos�s of the
illegitimate and politically-motivated acts of the so-called �Joint
Terrorism Task Force,� or JTTF, now operating within the U.S.
Justice Department.
In early 2004, in my role as journalist, I was covering a court
hearing in Atlanta in which the JTTF was involved in persecuting an
innocent patriot named Chester Doles. After the hearing I was
approached by JTTF Special Agent Joe Thompson, who, interestingly,
knew me though I did not know him. Thompson threatened me, saying
loudly enough for the entire room to hear (and pointing directly at
me): �Strom, you�re next!�[6]
The JTTF even intervened in an attempt � successful, so far � to
prevent me from getting redress in the Greene County courts for the
theft of virtually all of my possessions by my wife Elisha and for
her violent attacks upon me.
[6] (The article I wrote at the time is widely available on the
Internet (such as at http://tinyurl.com/strom-jttf) and includes a
description of the threat by Thompson. It was published more than
two years before my current case began.)
When this case began, who was it who raided my home with a SWAT-like
team of armored thugs and terrorized my family? Was it the FBI�s
Crimes Against Children unit? � or another agency devoted to
protecting children? No indeed. It was the Joint Terrorism Task
Force.[7]
[7]( It is worthwhile to consider that, according to FBI spokesmen
quoted recently in USA Today and the Washington Post (see
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-07-child-porn-computers_n.htm
and
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-04-15-childporn-side_n.htm),
there are more than 624,000 active traders and producers of child
pornography in the United States who have been conclusively
identified by their Internet addresses and IDs � more than 17,000
are in Virginia alone. And these figures are based on a study of
only one of the many file-sharing networks in use today. If cases
reaching the press are any indication, these are largely people with
thousands or tens of thousands of the most horrifying images
imaginable, many of which graphically depict violent abuse of little
children, even toddlers and infants. One investigator stated he had
to go to counseling after seeing some of these pictures. Law
enforcement spokesmen state that they only have the resources to go
after a minuscule percentage of such criminals, so they have to
concentrate their efforts and only prosecute the very worst
offenders. Arnold Bell, head of the FBI�s Innocent Images Unit, said
to USA Today: �There aren�t enough cops in the world to pursue every
lead, so the FBI focuses on cases in which kids may be located and
rescued.� It does appear that a very different set of standards was
applied by the JTTF in this case.)
Who was it at the prosecution table, trying to falsely convict me of
child sexual abuse and witness tampering when I was totally innocent
� when in fact the charges were so ludicrous they were thrown out of
court? And who is sitting at the prosecution table today? None other
than an agent of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
A small corner of my home in 1999, before I met Elisha, showing a
tiny sample of the art and other possessions stolen from me
[Illustration] A small corner of my home in 1999, before I met
Elisha, showing a tiny sample of the possessions taken
Attempted Destruction of a Life
When I left my home to protect myself from my wife�s anger and
violence, I took with me only what I could carry under my arms.
Elisha refused to allow me to retrieve any of my possessions. She
sold them openly, then incinerated what she didn�t keep in a bonfire
that burned for two days. I lost everything I owned; a lifetime of
books, art, heirlooms, clothes, radio equipment, letters, personal
records, mementos, and even my children�s possessions.
In November 2006 I went to the courts in Greene County to obtain
redress for that unprecedented theft and for the violence committed
against me. But I was prevented from pursuing my cases and in fact
found myself charged with serious crimes[8] for doing so. Who was it
who showed up at the Greene County courthouse, literally arm-in-arm
with Elisha, illegitimately crossing the bar and whispering secretly
to the judge and Commonwealth�s Attorney? An agent of the Joint
Terrorism Task Force.
[8] (For the �crimes� of filing a lawsuit demanding return of my
property, and for talking with a local magistrate about Elisha�s
violent attacks on me, I found myself facing federal charges of
�witness tampering� and �obstruction of justice� which alone could
have netted me 20 years in prison.)
[Illustration] A small part of the radio/studio equipment stolen from me
My troubled and estranged wife Elisha has committed many acts of
violence against me. I was an abused spouse. She has threatened to
kill me, and I have documentation[9] of those threats. She has used
threats and coercion to force me to give her money and property and
to sign documents under duress. She is both dangerous and delusional.
[9] (For one example, see documentation of her clearly audible
physical aggression, anger, and threats toward me captured when she
attacked me during a recording session for my radio program in 2006,
downloadable at http://documents.iqradio.org/. The source of her
rage in this case was my suggestion that she seek additional help
for her anger problem.)
She has accused me of having sexual liaisons with my ex-wife, with
professional colleagues, with correspondents from halfway across the
continent whom I�ve never met, with two teenage musicians whose work
I�ve promoted, with my stepdaughter, with my stepdaughter�s friends,
with cashiers at the local grocery store, with neighbors � I
literally cannot remember them all. My denials engendered more
accusations, more anger, more violence. At Elisha�s hands I�ve
suffered innumerable bruises, cuts, including a laceration that sent
me to the hospital to get eight stitches, and permanent damage to my
vision. My ill-advised attempts to placate and appease her[10] made
things even worse.
[Illustration] Report certifying that I am not a pedophile
The Motivation
Let me state for your honor and the record that I have never touched
Elisha or any other person in anger in my entire adult life; and let
me further state that my behavior and intentions toward all of these
girls and women was absolutely proper at all times.
[10] (Including agreeing in writing to see a counselor, an act which
has been wildly misinterpreted by the press and others: Though still
trying to placate Elisha and prevent her from carrying out her
violent and other threats, I changed the wording of the document she
demanded I sign to make it clear that I was not admitting to
pedophilia or anything of the sort. The counselor was one I was
already seeing in order to deal with the horrific situation I found
myself in � and I, not being a pedophile, knew that the counselor
would if he was honest declare me free of that perversion, as he in
fact has done. I am probably the only man within a hundred of miles
of Charlottesville who has been officially declared not to be a
pedophile. A copy of the counselor�s letter is also available at
http://documents.iqradio.org/.)
When I finally stopped acceding to Elisha�s demands for submission,
money, and property, she followed through on her threats to make her
false allegations public in order to, as she put it, �ruin� me. She
told me again and again that, unless I gave her large sums of money,
paid for thousands of dollars worth of cosmetic and augmentation
surgery for her, and gave her my property including a quitclaim deed
to the house � that unless I did what she demanded I would never
work in my chosen field again, and that I would be permanently
separated from my beloved children, saying of them explicitly �When
I get through with you, you�ll never see those f�-ing brats again.�
The Children Spoke the Truth
My stepdaughter and a friend of hers were interviewed by child
welfare authorities as a result of Elisha�s false claims, and
despite whatever pressures there may have been, they told the truth.
I was cleared. Though totally cleared by the local authorities, I
still found myself falsely charged and accused by prosecutors and
the JTTF with �sexual enticement of a minor,� charges which could
have put me in prison for the rest of my natural life, and yet
charges so absurd[11] that I made history in this very courtroom
when, for the first time in this district, federal charges were
thrown out as nonsense on their very face without the defense having
to utter a word. The preposterous �witness tampering� charges were
also thrown out at the same time.
[11] (The �enticement� included such �criminal� acts as 1) attending
the same county fair as a young family friend (though making no
contact and totally unaware of the other�s presence), 2) �being
seen� driving on a road a half mile from the friend�s home, 3)
sending a totally non-sexual and non-romantic birthday card to the
family friend, 4) sending a DVD of a G-rated film to the friend�s
entire family as a Christmas present (after receiving presents from
them earlier), and 5) holding an umbrella for her in a driving
rainstorm.)
Violence and Threats
Even after my arrest, Elisha�s violence and threats continued. I
continue to fear for my family and myself. Elisha has been
leafleting the neighborhoods where my stepfather and family live and
work, making lurid and false, yet alarming statements about me �
including accusing me of the crimes of which I have been acquitted �
which could seriously impact the lives of my family members.
Last May 9th Elisha lashed out with gunfire in a road rage incident,
discharging a firearm in a residential neighborhood � a crime. Yet
the JTTF came to the rescue, falsely characterizing Elisha as the
�victim� in the �witness tampering� case against me, and seizing
jurisdiction from the local authorities[12] so the government�s star
perjurer would not be prosecuted � as she most certainly would have
been otherwise.
Just a few weeks ago, Elisha openly and publicly called for my death
in an interview she gave to the press right outside the doors of
this courtroom.
[12] (Copies of the police reports on this incident are also
available at http://documents.iqradio.org/.)
A Most Telling Fact
And let me clarify one thing, your honor; a very important thing.
Elisha, no matter what her jealousies and hatreds may be, knows I am
not a pedophile. Just two weeks after the day she claims she
confronted me on that issue, October 17, 2005 � the date which
figured in my trial and the date her violence sent me to the
hospital � Elisha allowed me to take her nine-year-old daughter, by
myself and with no other adult present, to pick up my autistic son
and take them on a three-day trip to the beach for my son�s eleventh
birthday.
And she also allowed me to take her daughter, my stepdaughter, to
school and shopping on dozens of unaccompanied trips between that
October 17 and the day I fled our home nine months later.
[Illustration] A picture I made for my daughter while in solitary
confinement
Your honor, I know that judges have great powers to order
dispositions of their cases, and that power has increased of late.
Powers may exist which have seldom or never been exercised, and even
where there is no power to order, the ability to recommend still exists.
I genuinely fear that Elisha, or those she may incite, may harm me
or my family. Please take steps so that such persons may not obtain
my street address from any publicly available database. I am not a
sex offender in any meaningful sense of that term, nor a felon.
Please order or recommend that upon my release there be no
restrictions placed upon me regarding travel with my children or
attendance at their classes or school or other events.[13]
[13] (The judge did so order.)
[Illustration] My son and I on a hike in the mountains
Please make my family whole again as soon as possible. In
considering my fate, please also consider the fate of the real
victims in this case:
My 77-year-old mother and my stepfather who are taking care of my
children in my absence; they have been a hero and heroine beyond my
capacity to thank them.
My son Oliver, strong and stoic at 15, but also shy and sensitive,
who chokes up from the pain sometimes.
My daughter Vita, who is eleven and at the stage of life when she
needs her Daddy most. She is so bright, so open-hearted, so
innocent, so vulnerable. She does science projects and learns
elementary Latin � but still sleeps with a teddy bear. She cries for
her Daddy, and I keep telling her I�ll be home as soon as I can.
My autistic son Alfred, who doesn�t understand � isn�t capable of
understanding � what has happened to his Dad. He only knows that he
hasn�t seen me for a very, very long time. Let me quote from his
latest school reports: �His irritability and impatience typically
lead to tantrums accompanied by property destruction, self-abuse,
and aggression. He seems remorseful once he has calmed down, often
crying for his father and repeatedly saying �I�m sorry� and �I�m
sad.� There has been an increase in elopement. He often runs to the
van[14] and on occasion has put the van in gear. He frequently
requests to look at pictures of his father and hear �Daddy�s
letters.� �Alfred perseverates about his father daily[15]. He calls
out for �Daddy� and asks to call Daddy on the phone. He often
reassures himself �You�ll see your Daddy again.� At times he will
tantrum and engage in self-abuse.�
[14] (I have a van also, which Alfred loves to ride in.)
[15] (476 days so far.)
Your honor, I know I have spoken longer than is usual in such cases
� but this case is anything but usual. I believe that I have now
fulfilled my oath to tell the whole truth. I deeply appreciate your
listening. Thank you.
* * *
The judge expressed himself after my statement, indicating that
based on the reports he had read, including the interviews with my
stepdaughter and her friend, that he would have preferred me to have
pled Not Guilty to all charges. As a loving father, I could not do
that: The prosecutor �piled on� charges � six counts for one alleged
violation of law. I would have had to be acquitted six times in a
row to go home to my children � and the government could lose four
or five times in a row and still succeed in imprisoning me for
decades if one or two counts �stuck� as they could easily do in a
politically- and emotionally-charged case like this one, whatever
the facts. The ability to �pile on� charges for one alleged offense
is, in my opinion, a crime itself. It gives the government the
near-absolute power to intimidate innocent people � especially
innocent people with children they love � into pleading guilty to
one or two counts. I chose to return to my children this summer
instead of decades after they were grown, if ever. That�s the choice
I had to make, and I made it.
The judge could have sentenced me to ten years in prison and a
$250,000 fine. I was released about four months after my hearing,
close to the minimum sentence within his discretion. No fine was
imposed.
The time for truth-telling has come, and the world will be hearing
from me again.
* * *
Further information on this case can be found in the �About� section
of this Web site.
http://www.kevinalfredstrom.com/2009/01/kevin-alfred-strom-address-to-the-court/