Judge blasts lawyers in child porn case

Clay County District Judge Galen Vaa said Thursday attorneys did not give him all the information he needed before sentencing Robert Haseltine on a charge of disseminating child pornography.

In a strongly worded four-page letter released Thursday, Vaa said he was "perplexed" that neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys in the case told him about a Fargo police investigation that found 26 separate images of child pornography on Haseltine's home computer.

"Certainly, that information would have been highly relevant and may have affected my sentencing order," Vaa wrote.

A plea agreement, under which Haseltine pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of disseminating child pornography in Clay County, will likely keep him from being prosecuted by either Cass County or federal law enforcement officials. Cass County State's Attorney Birch Burdick has said his office intends to honor that agreement but hoped Haseltine would have gotten a stiffer sentence.

By writing the letter, Vaa said he wanted to clarify why he gave the 50-year-old Haseltine six months of home monitoring and suspended imposition of sentence, meaning that in three years it will go on his record as a misdemeanor, rather than a felony.

Haseltine, until recently a Moorhead elementary schools social worker who lives in Fargo, pleaded guilty Jan. 17, admitting he sent a single image of a naked underage girl to a Dilworth man.

In Thursday's letter, the judge takes both prosecutor Ken Kohler and defense attorney Mark Friese to task for not providing all relevant details about the Fargo probe.

"Attorneys for the parties are officers of the court and have the legal and ethical obligation to provide the court with any information that they are aware of which may be relevant to a sentencing hearing," Vaa wrote.

"Incredibly, neither counsel for Clay County or counsel for the defendant provided the court with any information whatsoever concerning the results of the criminal investigation of the defendant in Cass County, State of North Dakota, either at the sentencing hearing or prior thereto," he wrote.

Kohler said much of what Vaa said in his letter goes back to previous hearings, like the Jan. 17 plea hearing. "What I am going to do is ask for transcripts," Kohler said. "I don't want to make any comments until I've looked at transcripts."

Friese could not be reached for comment.

Vaa indicated he first learned of the Fargo police investigation when he read about it in Thursday's Forum.

The pre-sentence investigation, which isn't public record, did not mention the Fargo investigation, he wrote.

Vaa noted that at Tuesday's sentencing hearing, he specifically asked attorneys for both sides for any corrections to the pre-sentencing report. Neither Kohler nor Friese said anything about the Fargo investigation, so "I therefore concluded that I had all the relevant information and proceeded forward with the sentencing hearing."

In formulating Haseltine's sentence, Vaa said he considered letters of support he received from 39 of Haseltine's friends and co-workers. He also considered psychological reports stating Haseltine had a low risk of re-offending, a low risk of sexually abusing children and a low risk of using any more child pornography.

Vaa wrote that court staff told him one of the attorneys involved in the case has said police reports containing e-mail exchanges between Haseltine and the man to whom he sent the picture were filed with the Clay County Court Administrator's Office and were available for the judge to review before the sentencing hearing.

"That statement is not true and there is no factual basis in the record to support that statement," he said.

Both Kohler and Burdick have expressed disappointment that Vaa sentenced Haseltine to six months of home monitoring instead of jail.

At the sentencing hearing, Friese asked for home monitoring, citing Haseltine's lack of a criminal record.

"In response, (Kohler) ... indicated that the state did not object to the defendant serving his sentence through electronic home monitoring," Vaa wrote.

A transcript of the sentencing hearing shows Vaa specifically asked Kohler whether prosecutors agreed with home monitoring.

"Your honor, we're going to leave that up to the court," Kohler replied. "With proper supervision, we believe it's workable. And I do not believe Miss Borgen (Lisa Borgen, Kohler's predecessor, under whom the prosecution began), when she entered into this agreement, was in opposition to it at that point."

In fact, a transcript of the earlier plea hearing has Borgen, who was still county attorney during the plea, objecting to both a stay of imposition and electronic home monitoring.

Center urges tougher punishment:

The Rape and Abuse Crisis Center on Thursday issued a statement urging harsher penalties for those engaged in child pornography.

Robert Haseltine's wife, Beth Haseltine, is on a leave of absence from her job as director of the center.

"It is the center's stand that offenders need to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law," the statement said.

It said offenders should at least serve jail time and complete sexual offender treatment. It also said that possession or dissemination of child pornography is not a victimless crime.

The statement did not specifically refer to Robert Haseltine's case.

(Tom Pantera writes for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, a Forum Communications Co. newspaper)