Christopher Wilson has been out on bail since Oct. 12 after being charged with having obscene photos on his website. Wilson first made headlines when it became known that his site was offering U.S. soldiers free access to his site in exchange for pictures from Iraq and Afghanistan, many of which showed dismembered bodies and other gruesome war images.
The problem, according to Copley, is Wilson’s site is still up and running, which is why Copley requested Circuit Judge Dale Durrance revoke bail.
Under the terms of any bail agreement, a defendant is required to refrain from criminal activity, something Copley said Wilson failed to do by allowing his site to stay up.
A hearing has been set for Dec. 16.
“Since the defendant's release from jail on pre-trial release on Oct. 12, 2005, he has committed new crimes involving wholesale promotion of obscene materials and distribution or transmission of obscene materials, utilizing new and different photographs,” Copley said in his request.
Wilson currently faces 301 obscenity charges for images on his site, none of which have been disclosed publicly. His site, hosted by a server in Amsterdam, has remained online since his Oct. 7 arrest.
Copley’s legal dilemma now is to convince Judge Durrance that Wilson is still subject to Polk County, Fla., law, where the initial charges originally took place. However, Wilson has since moved out of Polk County, leaving some to question how local standards can still be applied to his case.
“I must have missed where [Brad Copley was] elected to be worldwide censor," Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida, told reporters Wednesday.
Simon said the ACLU might get involved in the case.
Wilson’s attorney, well-known First Amendment expert Lawrence Walters, has long argued that Wilson’s arrest may have been politically motivated.
“Given the fact that he had pictures of war dead on his site we have significant concerns that there is some political motivation here,” Walters told XBiz. “We want to know where this complaint is coming from and why Wilson was chosen among the thousands of webmasters out there.”
