The case of Julie Amero, a substitute teacher in Norwich, CT, has been getting more press, even from the mainstream media, lately.
Julie Amero was using the computer in the classroom when it suddenly started displaying porn pop-ups. She was unable to make them dissappear since every time she closed one, new ones would open up. She didn’t think of shutting down the computer or the monitor because the regular teacher had told her not to shut down the computer, and she didn’t understand the difference between shutting the monitor and shutting down the computer.
Some of the underage students in the class also saw the popups and told their parents. That’s when the “fun” started for Julie Amero.
The school fired her and she was arrested for suspicion of risking of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child. In January she was convicted of four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child and is facing upto 40 years in prison. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 3rd.
The clueless prosecution and their “expert” witnesses claimed she must’ve intentionally clicked on porn links, repeatedly for more than an hour and a half to access the porn popups. The “expert” witness testified that the browser history is evidence that she clicked on the links. Alternet has some more information about the “expert” testimony and how the “evidence” against Julie Amero was acquired.
All that would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that Julie is, indeed, facing prison time for a crime it’s obvious she never committed.
The Norwich public school system is throwing her to the wolves, because they can’t own up to their own mistakes of not keeping their anti-virus software uptodate and not having any other adequate safeguards on that computer. The Norwich prosecutor and his “expert” witnesses are so recklessly incompetent at their jobs, they should most certainly be fired on the spot. It’s also interesting the judge didn’t allow evidence to be presented at the trial that would’ve proven Julie’s defense (that the computer was so infected with spyware anything could’ve happened on it).
What truly is a miscarriage of justice in this case is that the stress caused by the case affected Julie so much that she miscarried. She and her husband have been battling infertility for years. There’s NOTHING anyone can do to repair that, even if somebody somewhere finally gets a fucking clue and let’s this woman go.
-TPP
