Scott A. Franklin
HANCOCK COUNTY — The Greenfield man charged with 12 counts of child pornography after information from a national tip line led police to a computer in his home will not spend any time in jail following the acceptance of a plea agreement last week in Hancock County Circuit Court.
Scott A. Franklin, 52, Greenfield, was arrested in August, 2019 after the Fishers Police Department, working with the Hamilton County Metro Child Exploitation Task Force, investigated three CyberTipline reports from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Franklin was originally charged with 11 different Level 5 felony counts of possession of child pornography and one Level 6 felony count of possession of child pornography. The charges could have carried more than 60 years in prison.
The plea agreement however dismissed all 11 of the Level 5 felony counts of possession of child pornography and called for Franklin to admit guilt to a Level 6 felony possession of child pornography.
Judge Scott Sirk sentenced Franklin Thursday, Dec. 1 during a change of plea hearing to a term of 910 days with 906 days suspended to sex offender specific probation. As part of the plea deal Franklin will have to register as a sex offender for 10 years.
Prosecutor Brent Eaton explained the plea deal, telling the Daily Reporter that actual possession could not be proven. Eaton noted there was a lot of back and forth with forensic experts going into finite detail of the computer and it’s contents.
“Realistically, all the defense would have to do is create reasonable doubt,” Eaton said. “Our burden is beyond reasonable doubt.”
At the time of the arrest in 2019, Eaton said the investigation was just beginning. Since the case originated outside the county, they hadn’t yet been fully briefed by the Hamilton County authorities.
The key unanswered question, he noted at the time, was where the images — some of which depicted an infant — originated.
“Did he generate the images himself or get them from a third party?” Eaton said, in a response to questioning concerning the source of the images.
A probable-cause affidavit filed here by the Hamilton County task force said that on three occasions in early 2019 — Jan. 7, 11 and 24 — a person using a specific internet address had downloaded images of child pornography using the Bing search engine. The files depicted children under the age of 18 years old. At least two of the images depicted children who appeared to be pre-teens, the affidavit states.
Investigators were then able to trace the IP address — a unique identification number for every computer using the internet — to one used by Franklin, the affidavit states. A search warrant was issued in June by the Hamilton County Metro Child Exploitation Task Force.
During the search of the property, Franklin told investigators he sometimes searched for pornography online and that it’s possible images of children showed up unexpectedly, the affidavit said.
Franklin also told police he followed suggestions provided by the search engine and admitted he would click on the suggested links out of curiosity, but he said he was not intentionally looking for this type of material.
“I wish I never clicked on anything,” Franklin said, according to the affidavit.
During the search, police seized the computer. An examination of it showed searches with several images of child pornography, including some depicting babies.
In total, at least 20 images of child pornography were recovered from the computer’s hard drive, the affidavit said. The computer’s internet search history also showed that several search terms commonly associated with people looking for child pornography were present.
