Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Henry
Elbert Edgington testified Tuesday that he was on a 10-month personal
crusade to cleanse the Internet of child pornography sites when Waco
police interrupted his quest in August 2007 before he could contact a
local congressman for help.

The 63 images of child pornography
found on Edgington’s work computer at the Czech Inn in West and other
photos discovered in a padlocked black box in his bathroom and car were
evidence of research the part-time minister at Elm Mott Church of
Christ was conducting before taking his one-man war against online
child pornography to U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, Edgington
testified.

Prosecutors J.R. Vicha and Hilary LaBorde and defense
attorney Seth Sutton rested their cases Tuesday afternoon and will give
jury summations this morning. The 54th State District Court jury of
seven men and five women should begin deliberations before noon.

Edgington,
65, of China Spring, is on trial on nine counts of possession of child
pornography. He had been charged with 10 counts, but the prosecutors
have since abandoned one count. If convicted, Edgington, who is
eligible for probation, faces up to 10 years in prison on each count.

He
and Sutton are relying on a statutory defense that says, in part, that
possession of child pornography is not illegal if it was for a “bona
fide educational, medical, psychological, psychiatric, judicial, law
enforcement or legislative purpose.”

Edgington said his fight
against child pornography began in summer 2006 when he read an article
about a group in Florida that pushed for stricter laws targeting Web
sites that exploit children. He said he told church members about his
crusade, which Sam Armstrong, senior preacher at Elm Mott Church of
Christ, confirmed in defense testimony Tuesday.

Edgington told
jurors that his plan was to investigate Web sites that feature children
and to print out examples of so-called child face models, ones depicted
in provocative, adult poses but scantily clothed, ones featuring nude
photos of children and ones depicting children in sex acts.

Along
with the photos, Waco police confiscated the newspaper article from
Florida printed out with Chet Edwards’ name, address and Web site
written on it. While evidence shows that the article was printed out
many months after some of the pornographic photos were printed,
Edgington explained that he lost his first copy of the article and
printed out another one later.

Waco Police Detective Scott Holt,
who led the investigation, said investigators also found at least three
e-mail messages from Edgington to young girls depicted on some of the
Web sites, including one that said: “You are so beautiful. It makes me
smile to see your face.”

Edgington said he only sent that to be
“sneaky” so they would send him more photos as part of his crusade. He
also said that more than 100 images police found in the black box of
Emma Watson, the young actress from the Harry Potter movies, were a
collection he was saving for his young granddaughter. He said they were
already in the box before he put a lock on it when he started his
project, despite what prosecutors noted were uncanny similarities in
appearance among Watson and the young girls in the photos.

Vicha
asked Edgington during cross-examination why he merely didn’t ask
trained police investigators to help with his quest and why it took him
so long — more than 10 months — to collect his evidence, which he never
did take to the congressman.

“During the 10 months you are trying
to complete your operation, who was helping those exploited little
girls?” Vicha said, wondering why Edgington hadn’t printed out pictures
of exploited young boys as part of his mission.

“I started
working on behalf of children and others 40 years ago, and I have no
intention of stopping until the day I die,” Edgington said.