James N. Durbin Technical Sergeant U.S. Air Force Convicted Sex Offender Possession Of Child Pornography

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Name: James N. Durbin

Case: United States v. Durbin No. 09-0380

Date Of Appeal:November 3, 2009

Plea: Not Guilty

Charges: possessing child pornography

Military Branch: U.S. Air Force

Listed In National Sex Offenders Registry? No

Technical Sergeant James N. Durbin was convicted of one specification of possessing child pornography at a contested general court-martial. The convening authority approved the adjudged sentence of reduction to E-2, confinement for one year, and a bad-conduct discharge. The United States Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the findings and the sentence.

Durbin’s wife was working late one night on a homework assignment when she found pictures on her husband’s laptop computer that she believed to be child pornography. Angry and upset, Ms. Durbin went upstairs and woke her husband and asked him to explain how the pictures got onto his computer. After initially denying knowledge of the pictures, Durbin said that it had been “a one-time thing.” Although Ms. Durbin did not ask him to do so, Durbin said that he would delete the pictures and subsequently took the laptop and sat down on the couch. Ms. Durbin saw her husband move his hands over the laptop’s touchpad, but did not look at the laptop’s screen while he worked on the laptop.

As Durbin was sitting in front of the computer, he said “[h]ere, I’ll delete them.” A short time later, in what Ms. Durbin believed was an effort to appease her, Durbin turned the laptop screen towards her and said “They’re deleted.” Ms. Durbin told her husband that he needed to get professional help and she asked him to move out of the house.

We agree with the Court of Criminal Appeals that the Government’s case was very strong. The hard drives seized from Durbin’s desktop and laptop computers contained thirty-two known or suspected images of child pornography. Ms. Durbin testified that she had earlier seen a folder full of child pornographic images on the laptop computer. Testimony established that the laptop computer was used almost exclusively by Durbin and the other individuals who had access to the computer testified that they did not view or download child pornography on either computer. The evidence also established that Durbin’s Yahoo e-mail logon had been used to search a Yahoo group website entitled “young p0rn” and had conducted a search using the following terms: “preteen queens”; “sweet sexy preteens”;

“sweet young girls”; “young hotties”.

The decision of the United States Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed.

There is no evidence that James N. Durbin has completed his sex offender registration as of December 12, 2010.