New Child Porn Charge
Against Ed Kramer

On September 30, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation issued a warrant against Ed Kramer on a new felony count of child pornography.

Only two hours before, reports WSB-TV, Kramer and his attorney had been in court trying to get bond on another case, “insisting he had just been sitting at home, obeying the law.”

With an oxygen tank attached to his wheelchair, Kramer described to a judge his urgent need for getting out of jail for an upcoming spine surgery.

“We will be here, we will be at every court appearance. He is not going to reoffend,” defense attorney Stephen Reba said.

But just after Kramer’s lawyer offered that promise, prosecutors dropped a new charge — more child pornography.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution details the new find in “Hacking probe leads to new child porn charges for DragonCon co-founder”:

…Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said about five pornographic images were discovered among the mountains of computer data GBI officials are pulling from Kramer’s computer in connection with the ongoing hacking case, which has also ensnared a private investigator and a sitting Superior Court judge.

The GBI took out a new warrant Monday afternoon charging Kramer — whose long, complicated legal history includes a 2013 child molestation plea — with a single count of possession of child pornography. The warrant describes one image in detail and said “additional digital image files were found of child sexual exploitation.”

The judge did not rule on the bond motion during Monday’s hearing.

Kramer and his three hacking case co-defendants are scheduled for arraignment in that case on October 10.

Two weeks ago, Kramer, private investigator TJ Ward, Ward’s employee Frank Karic, and Superior Court Judge Kathryn Schrader were all indicted on three counts of felony computer trespass. GBI investigators allege that Schrader hired Ward to investigate her concerns that DA Danny Porter was trying to hack into her computer. It has yet to be shared why the judge believed that, and Porter has denied the claim. Kramer worked for Ward tracking the activity on a WireShark monitoring system installed on the judge’s computer.

The AJC story continues:

Indictments accuse the quartet of using that access to interfere with, remove data from and otherwise “alter” Gwinnett County’s computer network.

Ward, Karic and Schrader have all bonded out of the Gwinnett County jail since their arrest.

Kramer had remained incarcerated — even before the child porn charge was filed.

The hacking case came to light when authorities seized Kramer’s home computers following a Feb. 26 arrest for allegedly taking a photo of a young boy at a Lawrenceville doctor’s office. Following that arrest, Kramer was let out of jail and placed under house arrest at his Duluth home, where he wore an ankle monitor and had no internet access.

[Thanks to Nancy Collins for the story.]

9 thoughts on “New Child Porn Charge
Against Ed Kramer

  1. I, too, often sit in my home, obeying the law.

    Also I’m really going to need some kind of book or documentary about all of this when it’s over. It seems so bonkers. A convicted felon doing cyber investigative work, a judge being indicted. What the hell.

  2. This whole case is truly bizarre.

    But the judge using Kramer to do cyber investigative work is the most bizarre bit. Much of the rest of it seems to flow logically from pedophiles routinely reoffending.

  3. The judge in question suffered a stroke years ago. I suspect she has been experiencing post-stroke dementia, which is known to happen–I saw it with my own grandmother. Unfortunately, since she is a conservative right-wing Republican and born-again, no one noticed the signs until she really went off the rails.

  4. I can only imagine how much DragonCon wishes that Kramer’s association with the con vanish from the news.

  5. Douglas Berry: That’s it, exactly — Dragon Con kept him on as a co-owner until fans started a boycott movement. The people who own it only cared about the publicity.

  6. My attitude is that a for-profit “SF con” is like a for-profit “church” or a for-profit “union”: a contradiction in terms. That which makes fandom joyous is done for love of the field. (But then, I’m an old Quaker and idealist.)

  7. The false “porn” pictures in question turned out to be copyrighted photos from the Sally Mann collection. They had no sexual activity and are not considered porn under federal or Georgia law. The defense attorney filed a motion for prosecutorial misconduct against the prosecutor for bringing the bogus charge:
    https://voterga.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/danny-porter-prosecutorial-misconduct-motion.pdf

    The computer trespass charge is also bogus since it is impossible for the Sharktap that was used to “alter the network”, “remove network traffic” or “interfere with the use of the … network” as the indictment alleges..
    Here is more:
    https://voterga.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/press-release-attorney-files-prosecutorial-misconduct-motion-against-da.pdf

  8. Pingback: Ed Kramer Takes Plea Bargain in Computer Trespassing Case | File 770

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