All your son needs to learn is how to best use all the time he will have. Reading, learning and just being is something that most of us do not have time for. He will.

My son lost commissary many times because they jerked him around. And then he would end up back there after his assigned commissary day and would have to wait another week. Most of the inmates were pretty good to him, they would give or loan him "stuff" to get by until he could get his own. Some money I got back on the phone end and some I didn't. This whole prison thing will bankrupt you if you let it - keep that in mind if you have a lawyer also, they will drain you until you have nothing left. But I do believe like coolrich said they do better than us. My son reassures me all the time that he is "ok" and something good will come out of this (I know hard to believe..). They are strong because they need to be and we are always sitting worrying, wondering how they are. He used to pray they (the feds) would just come to the county already and pick him up because all the inmates told him how much better off he would be and it was the truth!

By the way Kitty my son's lawyers included in the plea that he would not have to travel to the other state (s) to be charged.

Inmates and people in general are very resilient creatures. Guys going to prison---and the ladies outside who support them----are much stronger than they realize. Humans can usually adapt fairly well to any circumstance, even extreme ones.

@kitty, I think part of the confusion is that he has federal charges, but the state of Montana has picked up a conspiracy charge as a state charge. Both federal and state can charge him. Also they were in different jurisdictions.

The conspiracy charge in Montana is the most serious. If they think he was the moderator or administrator of a child porn board, and if they have the evidence, they will press very hard on the conspiracy charge.

They may or may not have all their ducks in a row in Montana as of now. They were able to arrest him because it only requires probable cause to get an arrest warrant; it takes more evidence than that to convict.

Of course, he will plea because they have all the IP addresses they need for a conviction. If they infiltrated that board for a few months before they shut it down, then they probably have concrete evidence that he was the administrator.

Usually they will act as another member or take over a member's identity who has been arrested on a child porn complaint in another situation. For example, if Joe Blow gets arrested on a child sex charge for nothing to do with this child porn board, they will find email communication between him and the board or to and from other people. Joe Blow then is tied to multiple areas and they threaten him with so much time that he allows the government to take over his identity.

They then sniff out a few other members of this board and arrest them. Unless they were using Tor or some strong encryption for communication, they know enough to make several arrests.

rewdiazepam

@ coolrich, He reads a lot. He loves to read.

@ Debbieo403, I can relate to EVERYTHING you said. My son is already in federal custody but I have a nephew in a state facility, god what a difference. I am trying to be careful about putting money on phone time, etc. But it's hard, what can I do say sorry son we will not be able to talk on the phone anymore, mom can't afford it.
His lawyer was court appointed, she said she would have tried to roll everything up together if she had known about it. Unfortunately, we didn't know about Montana until the plea deal had already been made here.

@ rew, According to his lawyer the charges in Montana are federal, that these charges involved a different board. The arrest warrant is from The United States District Court for the District of Montana. But you just hit on something, when all hell broke loose and our home was raided the police and DHS agents "talked to" my son in a closed room for well over half an hour. He admitted everything to them (he said because he wanted to keep us out of it), but he told me later that day that they told him they didn't want him, they were after the big fish and it would look good for him if he cooperated, so he gave them permission to use his screen name, email, etc. I wonder.......
I don't know when I will get to talk to him, (I think he is in Montana) but I will make sure I mention it to him.

I think I might know the child porn bust in which your son was implicated.

Anyway, I know it is too late for this, but NEVER EVER EVER NEVER talk to law enforcement. Remember this, law enforcement only wants to talk to three types of people: 1) the victims of a crime, 2) the witnesses to a crime, and 3) the suspect in a crime. They are not interested in anybody else.

If you are not the victim or a witness to a crime, you can bet you are a suspect and had better keep your mouth zipped. Anything------anything----even the most innocent of remarks can and WILL be misquoted and turned around to use against you.

Example, they told him they did not want him, that they wanted the "big fish."
Hmmm, is that why they are doing their best to hand a terribly long prison sentence on him? That they really don't want him? Yet he gets years on one sentence and is looking at a minimum of 15 years in another state via a federal prosecution. What a bunch of liars.

So they were only after the "big fish." If they are attempting to convict him for conspiracy as one of the administrators of the board, they KNEW they had found their "big fish" in your son. That was all a bunch of lies by the police.

They just wanted to butter up your son and scare him so they could extract the most information out of him to bolster their case against him. Oh sure, they wanted other names so they could go after them, but they had no intention whatsoever----whatsoever----of being lenient to your son. Besides the police is not in control of the case anyway. The only person who could give him leniency is the DA or the judge. They are in no position to grant "breaks" or leniency.
You can bet with his email address and password to the site that more people will be implicated in this child porn board.

But that is water under the bridge. We have to go on now.

We will see what happens, but I support you and your son 100%. If you ever need me, just message me.

rewdiazepam

PS Law enforcement is nothing buy legalized gangsters with badges.

I agree with completely, I know and you know it, but he didn't. They raided a few homes here that morning. As for the conspiracy charges that's only in Montana. Here it was just possessing and distributing.
Also, I was wrong, he is still in Ohio. he just called me. He said he called this morning but only let it ring a few times (not long enough for caller ID to register), then hung up (I wasn't home). I told him to let it ring until the machine picks up. We don't get charged for the call if I don't press that button. Apparently one of his cell mates told him they only fly prisoners on Tuesdays???? He also pointed out what conspiracy means; I got this from wikipedia; In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future. When he does get to Montana he will make sure his court appointed attorney knows that he has never had any contact with any other members of any boards.
Believe me, I appreciate your support , your advice, and all your help.

Update: I was wrong, he is still in Ohio. We now have a new "system" in place. He will call every day and let the phone ring until the machine picks up (yes we are old school, we still have an answering machine). That way because of called ID, I know he still there. If he needs to talk to me, he will immediately call again.
We are in no hurry for him to go because we are terrified about what he will be facing once he is out there, but at the same time we both want to get it over with.

Ok so the plot thickens with extra details. We have:

1. A CP board that I believe was infiltrated and controlled by law enforcement for a time. I know what CP bust this was but I don't know all the specific details down to that level so I'm not sure this.

2. A defendant arrested as a part of this CP bust that gave law enforcement control of his online identities.

This is a long shot but I would find out the dates the board was in operation under the control of the founder, the date it was infiltrated by law enforcement, the dates the board operated under law enforcement control if any and compare them with the date your son gave law enforcement control of his online identities.

Many times the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing and I'm just wondering if there's any chance investigators in one location made your son an administrator or convinced whoever was running the board to make your son administrator without telling the other location what was going on. If your son became an administrator after he gave law enforcement control of his identities then that should work in his favor. If he was already an administrator by the time he turned over his identities but the board was under law enforcement control when he was made an administrator, then that might open up a whole bunch of other things.

Like I said before, definitely a long shot but I'd still check into it

That's a great thought, Aladdin. I never thought about that.

Check the dates. It is possible that your son was NOT the board administrator but the authorities made him board administrator AFTER they assumed his identity----and you son had nothing to do with being an administrator.

He became administrator only after they MADE him one.

rewdiazepam

@ aladdin4d and rewdiazepam, my son did tell me that the date Montana started their investigation is apparently after the date NY started their investigation. He will let his lawyer know everything that transpired here. According to my son he was never an administrator, he was never more than a member of any on line board. I did tell him tonight when I talked to him to make sure his lawyer in Montana knows about his giving homeland security the okay to use his on line identity, screen name, email address, etc.

Well, got a call from my son this morning, he is on his way to Montana to face those charges. Now comes the part I think I hate most about this whole thing (again), the waiting to hear from him and not knowing what's going on. ;(

This just keeps getting better! Got a 15 second call, he is now in layover in Oklahoma at the Grady County Jail. He will be there anything from a day to 2 weeks. The phone system they use is not Securus (the phone system we have been using. They have a different system, their system is minimum $25.00 and a $9.95 processing fee, this is getting ridiculous, if I put the money on account and he is moved in a day I will have to wait god only knows how long, to get my refund. If I don't put the money on account and he's there 2 weeks we will have no contact for those weeks. I don't know what to do. I can't really afford to shell out another $35.00, but I need to be able to talk to my son one or twice.I do not like the idea of no contact for 2 weeks.