UPDATE 2: John Stelmack
APPEALS COURT FREES EX-PRINCIPLE
excerpts of an article by Suzie Schottelkotte – The Ledger (Lakeland, FL)
After 18 months in prison for a child pornography conviction, Scott Lake Elementary School’s former principal, John Stelmack, is about to be a free man.
A three-judge panel of the Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland ruled Friday that photographs he had were not child pornography because the nude bodies shown were those of an adult.
Photos of the faces of children, one of them a Scott Lake student, had been placed on those bodies, but none of the photos actually showed children nude.
“Unseemly as the images in this case may be, their possession is not (outlawed in Florida) because the only sexual conduct in the images is that of an adult,” Judge Morris Silberman wrote in the opinion. Judges Charles A. Davis and Marva Crenshaw concurred.
Stelmack’s lawyers have failed in previous attempts to get him released from the Wakulla Correctional Institution while his appeal was pending.
Chip Thullbery, a spokesman for the State Attorney’s Office, said there are no other charges the State Attorney’s Office can file.
“Essentially, our prosecution of Mr. Stelmack has ended with this decision,” Thullbery said Friday.
Appellate judges heard arguments Oct. 13 about whether children’s faces cut from photographs and pasted onto images of adult nude bodies should be considered child pornography.
Lawrence Walters, a lawyer for Stelmack, argued such images aren’t child pornography, and his client’s conviction and five-year prison sentence should be thrown out.
Walters said the images don’t fit the legal definition of child pornography because they “do not depict a child engaged in sexual conduct.”
He said a federal law was created to address “composite or morphed images,” but no such law exists under state law.
“As uncomfortable as the images may make us feel, they simply are not reached by current Florida law,” he said.
Diana K. Bock, an assistant state attorney general, insisted the images are child pornography, and the ex-educator’s punishment is appropriate.
Bock said the purpose of creating the images was to objectify a real child and to represent sexual conduct by that child.
“Once that picture was placed on that body, it changed the nature of that picture,” she said.
The appellate court judges, however, sided with the defense and said that if the state Legislature had intended to make simulated child sexual exposure illegal, it would have had to write that into state law.
Kent Lilly, a Lakeland lawyer who represented the family of two sisters who sued the Polk County School District in the matter, could not be reached Friday for comment.
Legal representatives for the Polk County School District also could not be reached for comment.
Deputies arrested Stelmack in December 2007 after finding cut-and-paste images in his briefcase stored in a closet in his office at Scott Lake Elementary School.
Stelmack had been placed on suspension Dec. 14, 2007, while school officials investigated accusations he had inappropriately hugged fifth-grade girls.
The two sisters were considered Stelmack’s “favorites,” David Carmichael, a lawyer for the school district, has said.
Four images recovered from Stelmack’s briefcase had the face of a 12-year-old Scott Lake student. One other image had the face of an 11-year-old student from a school in New York where Stelmack previously served as principal.
The girls’ faces were superimposed over the head of a 19-year-old nude model.
The Polk County School Board agreed several months ago to pay $120,000 to a family who said Stelmack inappropriately hugged their two daughters.
According to a court order signed by Circuit Judge J. Michael McCarthy earlier this month, the two sisters, who were not identified, will split $82,500 in a college trust fund. The remainder of the settlement money will be used to pay court costs, lawyer fees and future counseling should the girls need it.
The lawsuit also claimed Stelmack was obsessed with the girls, and had been “grooming” them for “further and advanced sexual activity” as they grew older. The girls were removed from the school and placed in a different one in another city to avoid “the chaos and turmoil” at Scott Lake, the suit said.
The settlement wasn’t based on the pornographic pictures but the inappropriate contact Stelmack had with the girls, Carmichael has said.
Last year, a jury found Stelmack guilty of five counts of possessing child pornography. He was sentenced July 10, 2009, to five years in prison and 10 years of sex offender probation.
What can I say, except if this is the law, then the law is crazy.
Some of the regulars will remember the “discussion” that went on last year when John Stelmack was convicted of possession of child pornography last year. One person is particular, argued that Stelmack’s First Amendment rights were violated when this happened. Believe it or not, the gentleman who emailed me to inform us of the successful appeal argued the exact same thing. In fact, I thought he was our old friend, except this fellow is much less arrogant and is almost a pleasure to disagree with.
But, civil or not, he’s still misguided, in my opinion anyways. Stelmack’s conviction wasn’t overturned because of misconduct by the prosecution or the police. It wasn’t overturned because John Stelmack’s rights were violated in any way.
Oh no, my friends, the 2nd District Court of Appeals let this moral degenerate walk out of prison because existing Florida law didn’t specifically outlaw the type of composite photographs he was caught in possession of. They found the pictures disturbing and repugnant, but not illegal.
My question to the judges is this; What did you think John Stelmack was thinking about when he looked at those picture? Where do you think his hands were? Don’t you think that, after a while, he’d have to have the real thing. Smarter people than I have published studies of pedophiles showing that this is indeed the pattern.
Unreal. But the assault on our children’s innocence doesn’t stop with the Florida courts.
Did you know that, according to the Supreme Court Of The United States, the kind if pictures John Stelmack created by taping the heads of little girls he was attracted to onto the body of a 19-year-old sex model is considered free speech and is protected by the First Amendment? Oh yes, and the justices would like us to know that those pictures are NOT child pornography.
The thing that gets me about Stelmack’s case is that he was in a position of trust, responsible for hundreds of young children. What scares me is that he had started to take the next step into pedophilia; The parents of twin girls who’s heads were used to create Stelmack’s “paper dolls” sued him and the school board for inappropriate touching the girls. The case was settled out of court.
We here at People You’ll See In Hell are in mourning today. We are mourning the death of common sense in our courts. We thought it was just lost, and couldn’t find it’s way home, but we are now forced to admit that it lives no more.
God help us all.
38 Comments »
I am not sure I agree with your opinion on this one. What if the models were not photoshopped or cut-and-pasted in any way, but happened to look like the girls? For instance, there’s a porn model who happens to look a lot like Miley Cyrus. Pictures of her have been floating around for years – if someone was caught with those in his possession, would that be grounds for a child porn conviction?
I know this is different – and yes, he was sexually objectifying children – but I think you go down a slippery slope if the mere likeness of an underage girl becomes grounds for a conviction.
Don’t get me wrong, the fucker is a sick man, but I am not sure you could pass a law to make something like that illegal – unless it was aimed specifically to the cutting-and-pasting or photoshopping of actual faces of children onto nude models’ bodies. I doubt, however, a lawyer could ever frame a law so clearly.
Steve, here’s an excerpt from the original aritcle:
“No, John Stelmack actually created his own child porn by taking pictures of children who attended his school and digitally superimposing their faces onto the nude images of other children that he had in his possession.
One of the children he took pictures of, a 10-year-old girl who had attended his school last year, was on four of the pictures he carried with him in his briefcase on the day he was suspended. Another girl, who has yet to be identified, had her face put onto another nude child’s body.
The pictures John Stelmack chose to put his student’s faces on were slightly disturbing to just about everyone who saw them.”
These were not photos of random children, these were photos of children over which he was in a position of authority. Theses were pictures of children he saw every day. Superimposed onto photos of nude bodies of other CHILDREN, not adults. It’s child porn, no matter which way you cut and paste it.
That information in the original story is incorrect NC – Stelmack used the same 19-year-old nude model’s body for all the “paper dolls” he made.
Well, the fact still remains, the faces were children he saw everyday, not just random kids. However, I stand corrected on the nude bodies.
Something tells me that the nude model in question probably had a very young looking body-slim hips and almost no breasts. You know, nothing so distracting as a full figure or big boobs.
And now I just creeped myself out. Eeeesh.
Wait what? Has the uS gotten so far as to NOT know the difference between right and wrong? What in the hell???
Steve you argue your point from very shakey ground. Would you have any problems if your childrens faces were shopped in to a porn scene? If you are a normal thinking parent yes you should. If you have no problems then you are one sick sack of pus.
2 very important things missing in the American mentality.
1) a sense of responsibility. You make the decisions that effect 99% of your life. Your job, where you live, how you live ect. the 1% is so seldom and not easily seen. How often do I hear or read “I hate my job” For fucks sake get a job you like then?!?!
2) a sense of morallity. Morals are for the most part in America dead. Take Paris Hilton. She is idolized but for what? Being a stupid talentless bitch that says thats hot? Come on.
This case and Steve your weak arguments only prove my point and I thank you for that.
I never said the guy wasn’t a piece of crap…and, to answer your question, I would be supremely pissed, murderously so, if someone did that to my kids. Unfortunately, getting rightously pissed rarely converts into a coherent law. All I meant was I don’t think that lawmakers (lawyers and especially politicians) could frame a law that would not end up costing us millions in challenges everytime someone was prosecuted under it.
For example, what if he didn’t actually paste the girl’s photos over the nude models bodies, but would simply place them overtop whenever he wanted to get off? His defense would say “Well, he didn’t actually cut-and-paste anything”….and then we are off to the races, and the legal system gets bogged down in ridiculous defense strategies.
Question: would it be illegal if he told someone he thinks about underage girls when he jerks off? He doesn’t own child porn, he doesn’t actually look at pictures of the girls, he just thinks it. Legislating imagination? And again, since you didn’t respond to my question about look-alikes, what if he was looking at “of age” models who simply looked like the girls? Do you think they could successfully frame a law to make that illegal?
Frankly, I think the guy should be chemically castrated and never be near children as long as he lives…which is hopefully for not much longer. But the law will never be framed correctly because there are too many loopholes, and too many ways that it could be interpreted.
I agree with you…the US is fucked up morally…and the two points you make are prime examples. But then again, many Americans would think other countries’ morals are suspect – Brazil’s age of consent is 14. Canada’s was 14 until a couple of years ago. Tough to legislate morality, since there is very rarely such a thing as univeral morals.
The legal system sucks. Period. Better that the family of these girls crippled the bastard in a beating that lasted several days. Of course, there are easily and clearly enforced laws against that…too bad.
Thats just my point. morality can be legislated. The founding fathers did. Just too many cooks stirring the soup fucked it all up.
So today it’s up to the parents to teach morality. I like to think my parents did a fine job as do many other. Most? haven’t seen any evidence to support that.
I honestly don’t give a shit what any American thinks of the morals or morality of a different culture. I had a few arguments with Americans in a resturant here in Germany and I was enjoying a beer and my daughter was with me. I was accused of all kinds of child abuse. I told the “people” to go fuck themselvs in the corner” as they had no real understanding of the local culture. They were imposing their form of morals on a different culture which is wrong. Sadly Americans are damn good at it.
See, I disagree with your line “…morality can be legislated”. Once it was considered moral to own slaves. Or keep blacks in the back of the bus. Or discriminate against homosexuals – hell, in many places, that is still considered moral.
Anything that harms someone can be legislated. Anything that denies someone property (theft, arson, etc.) can be legislated. But all morals – not so sure.
I would hate to live in a society in which the morals of something like the “Moral Majority” or whatever it is they call themselves now are legislated.
Morality as well as values change over time. Homosexuality used to be considered a mental disorder. Not no more now is it. I’m not saying that is a good or a bad thing only using it as an example.
Should our laws be too ridged to change then we are doomed. Yes it was morally OK to own slaves but that has since changed now hasn’t it? So how is that relivant to the debate at hand.
Morals as well as values can and ARE legislated by law. Your example of discrimination because of skin color. This was wrong and most people knew it. That is why the “rules” at the time were not as wide spread as you were lead to believe. Simply because most people understood these “rules” to be wrong. That is why laws were enacted to abolish these “rules” Blacks were then, from the law stance, see as being more equal. This was then tough in the schools. Morals and values were in fact changed.
Why could he just enjoy te 19 year old “model” as she is / was?
Because he’s twisted, and he is traveling down the highway to hell.
He’s not quite evil, but well on his way.
If he was not caught when he was, we’d be reading about a full fledged child fucker……
Seriously – with the money he’s making, spend a few dollars on a lap dance or save it and get a hooker……
Now before I go further
1, I believe these girls are victims – while not touched, raped, etc, they are still victims, and the fact they had to change schools is enough for me to feel that way
2. Given the ages, innocent, blameless
So now the hard hitting questions – how close to porn was he?
1. The 19 year old “model” – was she a late bloomer? Did she have the high hung perky tits of a much younger girl???
2. These girls – were they “early bloomers”? I have seen some 10 year olds that could put some 16 year olds to shame……
He was obviously sweet on a certain “model”‘s body only (superimposing images of faces over hers) and these 2 girls, so I dare say that he was trying to make a fantasy as close to reality as he could…. legally for the time being.
But what would motivate him to cross the line?
Sounds like he was close…..
Maybe he’s have always stayed behind the railing…
Or not….
While this *may* be acceptable for some old hermit pervert living alone in the woods, this is *NOT* acceptable behavior for someone who has authority and access over their targets.
Some of my jobs fell under the umbrella of the DOT and I was subjected to drug testing………
If one wants to work with children, then they must live by a tougher set of standards……….
I did………
And I demand that others do to.
It’s just that simple.
I have to agree with Steve on this one. And… sadly so. Yes, this guys scores really high on the ‘eewwww’ meter, but what he did wasn’t breaking the law.
One of the major reasons for child porn laws was to prevent the explotation of children. And in this case, the children themselves were not harmed (granted, I don’t know the details about the part that was settled out of court etc). The pictures he made were all kinds of screwed up based on my moral scale, but then, so are some ‘Art” such as the “Piss Christ” by artist and photographer Andres Serrano and THAT was displayed publicly.
On a less ‘ewww’ scale, the movie American Beauty protrayed an adult actress as a child doing things that would be considered child porn. However; it wins academy awards because she wasn’t REALLY a child.
Our morality often brings our hipocracy. So what we are left with is our law. The law protects children. That is good. The creepy are creepy, but the children are safe.
I feel he crossed a line, making these children objects of pornography.
Now, if someone got a porno pic of a tall male who is a bit overweight and a short hot looking female and superimposed my face along with my old girlfriend’s face on it and sent it to my wife….. UM….
Would the First Amendment protect them?
Which Amendment would protect me?
One of The Ten Commandments would…….. I hope….
Children *were* harmed by this. There are little girls out there who will grow up knowing some sick pervert used their pictures to jerk off. There are two little girls who had to deal with the inappropriate touching on top of that.
They have money set aside for future counseling of these little girls, because this is an emotionally harmful situation.
I don’t believe in “thought crime” or in legislating imagination, but this stepped beyond that.
Children were harmed.
Make no mistake that John Stelmack will most certainly suffer in hell regardless of if he is assigned to jail or not. Hell certainly transends law.
As the father of a son who was the survivor of a violent crime committed by the cock that was living with his mother (a long story that maybe some time I’ll share) I know first hand what harm dirtbags do.
Suffice to say, if some creepy dude spanking his member over a photoshopped picture is the worst thing that happens to these girls, then they are truly blessed. Certainly, before he learned to photoshop, he just used the school yearbook. And very likely, we can hope that he gets the intervention he needs so that his screwed up fantasies go no futher.
I wrote up something that happened to me / I was a part of.
(Richard Lavinge) (spelling may be wrong)
The readers here were very supportive and helpful.
I also mailed a hard copy to the pervert – no return address, just snail mailed it to him.
OH I bet it felt good to do that! He’s lucky you didn’t toss some anthrax in there. ;)
I remember every principal of every school I ever went to. All of them were awesome, approachable people who may have been strict when the situation called for it, but were kind and caring when it was needed. More than once I found myself in tears, explaining a situation to them. More than once I had to explain why I felt the need to use physical force against those who were bullying me. Each time I got a kind ear and a fair shake. Even after it was discovered that a male teacher had been spying on us in the changing rooms for gym and I had a distrust of male teachers and changing for class I never lost trust in my principal.
You will never convince me that these little girls weren’t harmed by this. They have lost trust in an adult they probably had complete trust in before. They’ll probably have difficulties knowing which adult males to put their trust in for a very long time. They’re hurt, they’re scared, and they’re going to need a lot of help.
Yeah, they were harmed. Maybe not physically, but emotional scars can be even deeper.
Thank you very much, John Stelmack. That sound you just heard was pedophiles all over the country whooping for joy and running off to sign up for Photoshop classes.
Although this is sick and demented….(If I cannot choose castration) I would prefer pedophiles Photoshop all day rather than have these depraved individuals out there making the real deal.
Unhappily the photoshopped images are used to fuel the fire, so to speak, and feed the sick fantasies of pedophiles. Found a very interesting article about pedophiles, photography and photoshop. I highly recommend you read it:
http://flooginmcnoogin.blogspot.com/2011/05/todays-lesson-pedophiles.html
Exactly, Cleo. If they allow themselves to indulge their fantasies, they’re going to develop a taste for it. And if we decide that this form of child porn is legally acceptable, it starts us down a very slippery slope.
Florida law is crazy, federal law was spot on here.
Had he transmitted these images across state lines, or had Florida law been as responsive as Federal law, this man would still be in prison. He’s a loophole and I don’t think the Florida Legislature should spare a minute before they close this loophole. As a matter of fact, all states should close it.
You know, this is why I stay with my fucked up husband. Not only because I love the idiot, but because I don’t want to date anyone and one day find this kind of shit in his briefcase.
The longer I read PYSIH, the happier I become.
I’m confused. Just because its not right doesnt make it against the law?? So why is robbery, arson, rape, and murder a crime? Because it is WRONG. This man used those little girl’s faces so he could rub one out. That’s disgusting and IMO, a gateway to even dirtier, disgusting acts. One day he will become a repeat offender. Pains me to say this but he will probably hurt a little girl. All because of some loophole in the rule book. Can the American justice system be any more flawed? This hurts my heart knowing someone could super impose my 4 year olds face on an eighteen year old body for sexual pleasure, and its not necessarily illegal? This world is sh*t.
This is all kinds of fucked up, yeah, but he was either smart or lucky enough to find a way to make “child porn” that wasn’t strictly illegal. I’m sure the loophole will be closed soon enough. That doesn’t make the guy any less disgusting, but the law’s hands are kind of tied here.
@Steve … I can see your argument and it’s well expressed. But I can’t see that there would be any great problem legislating against this sort of simulated child pornography. Attaching the likeness of a child to [insert description here] … doesn’t sound too difficult.
By the same token he could then just stat using un-altered photos of kids to get his happies, or as you mentioned lookalikes or young looking models. That stuff is all sick … but impossible to control ….
The thing is though, as has been said above, it’s all part of a progression …. and I would REALLY prefer that we stop said progression at some point BEFORE they get their hands on a real live kid ….
I agree that there should be no problem legislating this, if the people doing the legislating weren’t complete and utter douchebags. I don’t think, like I said before, that politicians and/or lawyers could frame this legislation properly. Look at the whole budget fiasco…a big steaming pile o’ turd – from politicians who whined about not seeing their pomegranate and fig trees blossom.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m a cynic. My rule, if I was in charge, would be no lawyers can EVER be a politician (the more convoluted the law, the more money a lawyer can make “interpreting” it). In fact, there would be no elections – people would serve a 4 year term in political office much like they would jury duty. :)
Look I am not condoning child porn. The fact that he would superimpose young girls heads over a nude body suggests that his guy is a sicko and that he should not be a principal or working with children. But this goes into a grey area that can’t be prosecuted. Unless it is an actual child? you can’t convict on that. Even if it is creepy and disgusting as all hell.
What concerns me is that with no criminal record, this guy can quite easily demand his job back, and they’d have little grounds to stop him… sure, they paid out some settlements but he wasn’t convicted of anything in those… and he seems to have a very clever and sneaky lawyer.
And that’s sort of the big problem… if this isn’t illegal, if it’s completely acceptable behavior that an adult should not be punished for… then there is no grounds for preventing him from working with kids. And that scares the hell out of me.
Odds are high that the school board asked him to sign a resignation letter–if they didn’t they were foolish.
I believe if you read the original story, you’ll see that he did in fact sign a letter of resignation.
Good catch, sorry I missed it.
I don’t know about school districts in Florida, but when I worked in a couple school districts I had to sign my life away when it came to stuff like this. Had I been caught with ANY kind of pornographic images on school grounds I would have been not-so-nicely shown the door. And since I worked in small communities and things get around if I had those kind of images I’d want to move post haste before someone came to show a bit of small-town justice.
Yes, he’s not a convict, and he has no criminal record. But if his contract is worth the paper it’s printed on he couldn’t get his job back either way.
I don’t really blame the justice system for this…sometimes, laws just haven’t caught up with the perversions. It’s similar to the case in Louisiana, years ago, where the man had cameras installed in a neighbor’s home and recorded the family. Because the laws had not caught up with technology, and this was the first big instance of such a thing being discovered, all they could get him on was breaking and entering, and not voyeurism or committing a crime against the family. Of course, the family lobbied to fix that, and it’s well on it’s way to being a law in every state now. That sounds a lot like this case…when the child pornography statutes were put into place, I’m sure there was no way to foresee exactly every single way someone could pervert childhood, especially when “copy and paste” wasn’t even widely used yet. Sometimes, the hands of the law are tied…it’s not that they don’t agree it’s wrong and something should be done about it, it’s just that the letter of the law is such that, currently, NOTHING can be done about it. I certainly wish that weren’t the case, in this instance. Hopefully, they will correct that.
Principal, not principle…
I don’t understand this, possibly because I’m not American. The story seems to suggest there is a federal law against what this guy did but not a state law.. but federal laws apply to every citizen so why can’t they get him under the federal law?
Ms. Me, I think it has a lot to do with jurisdiction. The federal government can’t get involved in crimes within a state unless they are of a certain type: Internet crimes, postal service, crimes against federal employees and the like. Also if the crime occurs across state lines they get involved.
Not sure if my explanation is entirely correct and it probably doesn’t make sense to non-residents of the USA. It all stems from our system that places a lot of emphasis on a state’s right to government itself over federal control.
R.