Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: 10/05/06

Contact person(s):

Media Coordinator, Donna Edwards - 565-3099 Media Spokesperson, Assistant District Attorney Larry Scoufos

Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California

DISTRICT ATTORNEY REQUESTS DISMISSAL OF
MISDEMEANOR CHARGES AGAINST KARR

District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua announced today that his office has moved to dismiss misdemeanor child pornography charges against John Mark Karr. This motion was made before Superior Court Judge Rene Chouteau after the prosecution requested and received additional information from a forensic expert employed by the makers of the EnCase program.

District Attorney Passalacqua stated, "This case involved the exploitation of the most vulnerable members of our society, with images depicting graphic sexual acts on very young children. For this reason, we exhausted all resources available in an attempt to have Mr. Karr register as a sex offender for life. Unfortunately, Mr. Karr has benefitted from his flight from these charges on the eve of trial in 2001."

The prosecution was informed today that experts are unable to retrieve information from the "mirror image" hard drive from Karr’s computer. Because the copy of the hard drive was reused, the images cannot be retrieved and it cannot be established precisely when the pornography was downloaded or accessed by the defendant. While it is known that child pornography was in Karr’s computer, the People cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he possessed it within the specific time frame required under the law.