United States v. Grzybowicz

The federal government (plaintiff) prosecuted Michael Grzybowicz (defendant) for the production, possession, and distribution of child pornography. The government brought the distribution charge under 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2), which did not define "distribution." The trial evidence established that Grzybowicz, Patricia Cochrum, her two small children, and her boyfriend went to an amusement park. Grzybowicz's wife, Bette Schuster, stayed home because she disliked Cochrum and suspected her of having an affair with Grzybowicz. Grzybowicz offered to watch Cochrum's children for five or ten minutes while Cochrum and her boyfriend rode a roller coaster. After leaving the park, Cochrum's two-year-old daughter complained that her genital area hurt, which Cochrum attributed to a chafing diaper. Once Grzybowicz got home, Schuster's suspicious nature led her to check his cell phone. Schuster noticed that the phone contained four images, which had been sent to an unknown email address, of a man's hand molesting a small girl's vagina. Schuster called police. Grzybowicz consented to let the police search his computer, where the officers found a new password-protected user profile containing a folder with 79 images of child pornography, including two of the four pictures found by Schuster on Grzybowicz's phone, and other images of infants and young girls with their vaginas exposed. Grzybowicz knew the password but Schuster did not. Further analysis showed that the four pictures had been emailed to Grzybowicz's new user profile during the few minutes that he was in charge of Cochrum's children. The child in the pictures wore a yellow dress, which enabled Cochrum to identify the child as her daughter. The jury convicted Grzybowicz and he appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.