Our Firm Obtains $500,000 Settlement for Client Falsely Charged With Possession of Child Pornography

This week, our firm obtained a second major victory for a client who was falsely charged with possessing child pornography. After we obtained a dismissal of his charges last year, the City of Thomasville last week agreed to pay our client $500,000 to settle his claims for wrongful prosecution against the City and its police department. Our client was arrested and charged with child porn offenses based on his possession of screenshots from a PornHub video that featured adults, came from a verified account, and had been viewed over 12 million times.

The case began in March 2019, when Flickr, a cloud-based storage service like DropBox, incorrectly flagged images in our client’s cloud storage account as “potential” or “suspected” child pornography. Flickr and other social media and cloud-based storage services sometimes use algorithms that are designed to try to identify sexually explicit pictures of minors. The problem here, of course, is that the pictures were of adults engaged in consensual sex.

As in most of these kinds of cases, Flickr automatically forwarded the tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Critically, NCMEC had never seen these images before, let alone identified them as child pornography, so they forwarded the tip to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for further investigation. The GBI then worked with the Thomasville Police Department since our client lived in Thomasville.

What happened next was an egregious failure by law enforcement in this case. When investigators showed up at our client’s house with a search warrant to seize his computer and cell phone, they interviewed him. During that interview, our client insisted that the images were screenshots from a PornHub video featuring consenting adults, not children.

Unfortunately, the officers were not interested in the truth and had already made up their minds that our client was guilty, so rather than do any further investigation, they ignored our client’s claims and arrested him for child porn possession. If convicted, our client faced decades in prison and life as a registered sex offender.

Our client was an upstanding member of his community, and he lost almost everything overnight. His reputation was destroyed, his family estranged, and he was financially ruined. Fortunately, he hired our law firm, and the District Attorney did the right thing and dismissed the case when we sent them proof through the link to the PornHub video. We also contacted the women from the video, who confirmed they were not minors.

While our client’s criminal case was behind him, and his record was sealed, the damage was done. The newspaper which had run a story about his charges only provided an update in the old article noting that his case had been dismissed—not that there was proof he was actually innocent. Our client could not get his old job back, and the rumors in town continued. 

Still seeking justice, we promptly sent the City of Thomasville a demand letter for damages, explaining how their police department had ruined the life of an innocent man based on their deliberate disregard of the truth and their failure to adequately investigate their case. The City requested mediation, where the parties get together to negotiate a settlement. We presented a detailed case that explained why we felt we would win a jury trial. 

Like the District Attorney, the City of Thomasville did the right thing and was willing to offer our client a significant settlement. Last week, the City committed to paying our client $500,000 to settle his claims against the City and its police department. Just as importantly, the attorney representing the City’s insurer apologized to our client for what he had been through—the first time our client heard an apology for his false arrest and prosecution.

While money alone won’t restore our client’s standing in the community or make up for the pain and suffering he experienced after being falsely accused of such a serious crime, it’s a start. And while our fight to restore our client’s name and reputation continues, the fact that the City agreed to a significant settlement of his claims reflects the fact that he was truly innocent.

If you or a loved one have been falsely charged with a serious crime, please contact our firm. Not every criminal case will lead to a lawsuit, even if the charges are dismissed, but the first and most important thing you need is someone to fight hard to prove your innocence. Our attorneys are ready to fight for you and your family.