Man takes stand in his child porn trial

ENCINITAS — Michael Douglas took the stand in his own trial on March 7 and March 8 and testified that he didn’t do anything illegal on his computer.
He is charged with three counts of distributing child pornography, one count of possession of child pornography and a misdemeanor charge of attempting to send child pornography to a minor.
Deputy District Attorney Keith Watanabe said the case was complex and involved more than 5,000 chat logs and 1,000 images of child pornography.
If Douglas is found guilty, he will have to register as a sex offender, he said.
Douglas said he was sleeping the morning of Nov. 26, 2006, when he heard loud screaming and thought something happened to his dog.
“I flung my door open and saw three agents with guns pointed to my head,” he said. “I was in sleep shorts. They yelled for me to get down.”
He said he was arrested and sent to jail and that his mother posted his bail.
He said he went home afterward, in shock of what was happening.
“I wasn’t doing anything illegal on the computer,” he said.
He told the jury he had a good idea of who might have used his computer, and that at least two people had his passwords and that his computer had also been hacked back in 1997.
He denied any interest in children, according to court records, and in his testimony to the court he said he liked women.
He said his favorite type of a woman is tall and athletic.
“If she’s 6-foot-tall and above, I’m interested,” he said.
He said he was a beach volleyball photographer, worked as a courier and also helped with Francine Busby’s 2006 political campaign for congress in the 50th District.
But forensic computer analyst Mark Luque testified that time-zone stamped chats were physically found on Douglas’ computer, that matched up with chats from an undercover agent who was performing a child porn investigation and pretending to be a 13-year-old girl.
Luque said that a 64-page Internet history report showed many searches relating to pedophilia in the file path of Douglas’ computer, and that it showed that he also belonged to between 35 and 50 interest groups on the topic.
There were also images contained in a “my documents” folder on his computer, Luque said.
He said that certain software had been installed on the computer for file sharing and the downloaded files were explicitly set to be sent to “my downloads.”
“The focus on the application was for file sharing – how can I get that data to me?” Luque said.
The nearly two-week trial closed on March 8, and the jury is in the deliberating stages.
If convicted, Douglas faces up to four years in prison, according to Watanabe.