Orange County Judge Pleads Innocent to Child Porn Charges
Originally published by The Associated Press, December 3, 2001
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — An Orange County Superior Court judge pleaded innocent Monday to six counts of possession of child pornography.
Judge Ronald C. Kline, 61, entered his plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Marc Goldman, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Deirdre Eliot.
Kline, who was ordered confined to his Irvine home after posting a $50,000 bond, was scheduled to go to trial Jan. 22. If convicted of all charges, he faces up to 30 years in prison.
On Nov. 5, authorities searched Kline's home and confiscated two computers and 116 computer disks they said contained sexually explicit pictures of young boys. They also said they found a diary in which Kline allegedly wrote about his sexual attraction to teen-age boys and visits to shopping malls, Little League games and the shower area of an athletic club.
According to an affidavit filed by police, Kline admitted keeping a diary about boys. But his attorney, Paul Meyer, said it was "an ongoing written conversation with himself" that was never voluntarily shared with anyone.
An anonymous e-mail sent to a watchdog Web site led to the investigation and the subsequent arrest of the judge. The e-mail claimed the judge kept the pornography on his home computer and was sending it over the Internet.
Meyer has said Kline never sent the photos to anyone, adding they were discovered when a hacker broke into the judge's home computer from a remote location and made an unauthorized copy of everything on his hard drive.
