Former pastor to be tried today on child porn charges

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Nearly three years after being accused of possessing child pornography, a former pastor is scheduled to go to trial today in Albemarle County Circuit Court.

For most of that time, lawyers have been dealing with questions about the age of the females in the images that authorities said they found on Gregory M. Briehl's computer in July 2006. An expert was brought in to try to identify their ages by sight, and the prosecution has tried to find out more information about the females in the images, which came from an Australian Web site, without success.

On March 17, Circuit Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. denied a motion filed by Briehl's attorney, Rhonda Quagliana, to dismiss the charges. The judge ruled that the prosecution pursued reasonable efforts to find exculpatory evidence.

Quagliana said she believes paperwork exists to prove that the models in the pictures are 18 or older.

During a motions hearing this month, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Jon R. Zug said the inconclusive age of the models in the pictures has complicated the issue.

In May 2006, authorities raided Briehl's Earlysville home and his Charlottesville-based First Stone Counseling Center for video equipment after getting a tip that he was filming guests at his home without their knowledge. Briehl was convicted of unlawful filming in September 2006 and sentenced to 60 days in jail.

During that search, authorities said they found about 100 pornographic images that appeared to be of underage females. County police Detective Chuck Marshall has said Briehl told authorities that he liked to view images of girls between 14 and 17.

Briehl did not respond to an interview request for this story.

The 15 indictments that Briehl is facing mostly involve images that came from an Australian Web site. A printed copy of the front page of that site filed in the court's records said it features models who are 18 and older. Users can submit their own images for the site to get a free membership, but the site said that it would be illegal to submit images of models under 18 years old.

Under Title 18, section 2257 of the U.S. Code, pornography Web sites are required to maintain records on each performer featured on their site, including the performer's age and legal and stage names.

In his efforts to access those records, Zug contacted the Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Center. According to court records, a department employee told Zug that the Web site's registrant was listed as Rick Chant, who had a post office box in Herndon. In early September, an Albemarle circuit judge entered an order to compel the U.S. Postal Service to reveal Chant's street address. Zug hand-delivered a subpoena to the Herndon location.

The address came back as a regional office of Booz Allen Hamilton, a national consulting firm. A company employee confirmed last week that the office building and address were not shared with any other companies.

"Once that happened, I was at a dead end," Zug said in court during the March 9 hearing.

In Virginia, a person convicted of possession of child pornography can face one to five years in prison.

Tasha Kates is a staff writer at The Daily Progress in Charlottesville.