MASON CITY – A Mason City man who was sentenced to prison in June after being found guilty by a jury of possessing child pornography has lost his appeal.
Brandon Clark Manning, 32, was sentenced two years in prison and ordered to pay a $625.00 fine after being found guilty on June 17th of the charge of possessing child pornography, an aggravated misdemeanor. At least 23 pieces of evidence were submitted in court.
Clark appealed his conviction for sexual exploitation of a minor, claiming his right to privacy was violated by a private party seizure and the subsequent police search of a flash drive that contained illicit images. Second, he claimed the State did not offer substantial evidence he possessed the flash drive found in his tool bag. The flash drive came into the hands of police by way of private citizens who found it in Manning’s tool bag and viewed its contents before turning it over to authorities. Police opened the files on the flash drive without obtaining a search warrant.
The Iowa Court of Appeals upheld his conviction, saying that the federal and state constitutions only protect against unreasonable search and seizure by state actors, and because the police search did not exceed the scope of the private actors’ viewing of the flash drive, the justices affirmed the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress. Additionally, his conviction was affirmed because the record contains ample evidence Manning knowingly possessed the pornographic images of children saved on the flash drive.
Mason City police earlier said that they began investigating Manning in October of 2012.
According to court documents, in October 2012, Paul Nieman needed to borrow tools from his friend Brandon Manning, but Manning was in jail. Nieman had used Manning’s tools in the past and told Manning’s girlfriend, Patricia Pearce, he intended to borrow them again. Nieman found the tool bag inside Manning’s truck.
Inside the lining of the tool bag, Nieman found a flash drive. Because of the way the flash drive was hidden, Nieman was “curious” about its contents, so he plugged it into his laptop computer. On the flash drive he saw what he considered “indecent” photographs of children. Nieman recalled the children depicted were four to five years old and looked like they were engaging in sex acts.
Nieman then called Barb Corey, who had dated Manning for three years, and told her he found a flash drive with “pictures of little kids on it.” Corey picked up the drive from Nieman and “checked to see what all things were on it.” She saw images of a “cartoon” portrayal of child pornography she had seen Manning drawing while they were dating. Also on the flash drive, Corey saw sexually explicit photographs of herself she remembered Manning taking and “a lot of pictures of him in his apartment.” Corey testified she did not load any additional images onto the flash drive before she turned it over to the Mason City police officer Jason Hugi.
Officer Hugi recalled Corey bringing in the flash drive on October 21, 2012. Corey told the officer she had received the drive from a friend of hers and was “concerned that there were some pictures on there of her children, pornographic pictures of her children.” Hugi took the flash drive to Investigator Jeremy Ryal, who had specialized training in computers and child pornography.
Investigator Ryal placed the drive into his computer and the two officers viewed the images. The drive contained eighteen separate images of child pornography, seventy-two sketched images of children engaged in sex acts, and fifteen photos showing Manning’s face. The images were all organized in a folder titled “overtime work candy” and all appeared to be loaded to the drive on the same day, February 20, 2012, around the same time of day. Officer Hugi interviewed Manning about the drive. Manning denied ownership of the drive containing the images.
Police arrested Manning on March 22, 2013. A jury found Manning guilty and the court sentenced him to serve a prison term not to exceed two years.
AWAITING TRANSPORT TO PRISON
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