Killing Suspect Known to Cops
A child-porn probe began months before a girl, 12, was slain.
By Sam Stanton, Denny Walsh and Wayne Wilson, Bee Staff Writers
Originally published in the The Sacramento Bee, July 21, 2001
Justin Michael Weinberger, the suspect in the Nov. 8 slaying of 12-year-old Courtney Sconce, had been under scrutiny by law enforcement for more than four months before her death.
But a variety of procedural and other delays kept him from being arrested on child pornography charges months after the slaying of the Rancho Cordova girl, according to court records and sources.
No evidence suggests that the delays contributed to the girl's death. But sources say the fact that Weinberger's father is a deputy state attorney general led to a postponement of more than a month in acting on a search warrant in the pornography case.
The delays came to light Friday as Weinberger was flown from jail in New Mexico to the Sacramento County Jail.
Sources said Weinberger waived his right to an attorney and was being interviewed by detectives late into the night Friday.
He is scheduled to face arraignment Monday in federal court on the pornography charges, and officials say he subsequently will be charged in Superior Court with Courtney Sconce's murder.
Weinberger, a 20-year-old El Dorado Hills man, had no prior serious criminal record.
Despite what authorities characterized as evidence of deep involvement with graphic child pornography, friends said Weinberger never showed any signs of being troubled.
"I've known him all my life, since I was in kindergarten," said Michael Vidot, 20, of Rocklin. "He wasn't strange at all. I mean, he was just a normal person."
Vidot said Weinberger called him Wednesday from jail in Albuquerque and said he was waiting for the results of DNA testing.
"He never brought up the Sconce case at all," said Vidot, who described himself as Weinberger's best friend. "He just said, 'I didn't do it.'"
Vidot described Weinberger as a typical suburban kid who played youth baseball and soccer and had two girlfriends in the past.
According to court records, Weinberger first came to the attention of authorities on July 7, 2000, when an undercover sheriff's deputy in Tampa, Fla., Detective Peggy Grow, logged onto the Internet to search for child pornographers.
Grow found some postings involving girls who appeared to be younger than 14 involved in pornographic poses or sex acts with adult men. She alerted the FBI, where agents traced them to a computer inside the home owned by Weinberger's father, Michael, in El Dorado Hills.
Acting on the information, FBI agents asked a federal judge in September to issue a search warrant for the Weinberger home.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Dale A. Drozd signed the warrant allowing a search of the house. But one source said Drozd recognized the name of Michael Weinberger, a Sacramento-based deputy state attorney general.
That led to a delay while agents rechecked their evidence. The original warrant expired after 10 days, but agents returned to court on Oct. 31 asking for another.
One source said there were discussions among federal agents and prosecutors about whether Attorney General Bill Lockyer should be told about the case in advance, but they decided against it.
The warrant was signed Oct. 31 and executed on Nov. 6 by agents who went to the Weinberger house, then called Michael Weinberger at his office and notified him they were there.
Michael Weinberger cooperated with agents, who inspected his computer and found nothing illegal. They then inspected Justin Weinberger's computer and later discovered more than 300 images of child pornography, records show.
Agents took no immediate action against the younger Weinberger, a delay that one source said occurred partially because such computer searches can take weeks to complete.
Two days after the search warrant was issued, court records say, Justin Weinberger quit his delivery job at Rox Automotive in Rancho Cordova.
That afternoon, Courtney Sconce was abducted from near her Rancho Cordova home. Within hours, she was found on a sandy beach along the Feather River in Sutter County. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
Law enforcement officials began a massive investigation of the killing that looked at more than 1,200 suspects.
But Justin Weinberger didn't come to their attention for months.
His only prior brush with the law was being charged in October 2000 with throwing a rock at a car. Justin Weinberger was represented by "M. Weinberger" and pleaded no contest, records show. He was fined $300 and ordered to take anger-management courses.
Justin Weinberger didn't face charges in the pornography case until May, when he was charged in El Dorado County Superior Court, arraigned and released on his own recognizance. Those charges could result in a maximum of three years in prison.
El Dorado County District Attorney Gary Lacy said Friday that his office took over the case at the request of federal officials.
That case was still pending earlier this month when FBI agents uncovered an apparent link between Courtney's case and Weinberger, officials said.
A sun visor left at the scene of the slaying was tracked using its lot number to a store in Rancho Cordova. Credit card records showed Weinberger bought it.
At that point, agents went to the Weinberger home to ask for a DNA sample, but the suspect was not there.
After that FBI visit, Weinberger left a message for his friend, Vidot, telling him he was leaving the state because the FBI was trying to charge him with a crime he did not commit.
Weinberger was arrested in Raton, N.M., after allegedly vandalizing a motel room and walking out on a meal at a Denny's restaurant without paying.
Once in custody, authorities there learned through a computer check that Sacramento officials wanted him held. Two sheriff's detectives from Sacramento flew to New Mexico last weekend to obtain a DNA sample, which the state Department of Justice crime lab then analyzed and matched to the Sconce slaying.
