Sex Crimes, Sex Offenders Would someone be at risk for prosecution for accidentally viewing child pornography?

L

LC1990

Guest
Jurisdiction
Texas
So about a three years ago I saw what I perceived to be child pornography on a popular pornographic upload website. I clicked off and became extremely distressed. Since that time I have had anxiety about being charged for a sex crime ever since. Because if it happened once obviously it could have occurred before and I just didn't realize it. This occurred when I was 22 and I had been accessing pornography online since I was 16. Something I thought was a moral grey area but utterly harmless. Ive also donated every computer I have ever owned during that time period. Defragmented the hard drive but Im not a computer expert. I assume my internet access log is somewhere. My question is can someone be prosecuted for a crime for just accidentally viewing something they did not realize was illegal? Ive never searched for something that heinous purposely in my life. If someone were to answer on if I am at any risk of prosecution that would be great. Regardless of if this is a stupid question it would cause me some relief of longterm anxiety.
 
If this hasn't come back to bite you after 3 years it probably won't, especially since your computers are long gone.

By the way, defragmenting a hard drive doesn't delete anything, it just rearranges files to make more efficient use of space.

Next time you want to sell or donate a computer, either take out the hard drive and destroy it (a perfect solution) or format the hard drive and reinstall just the operating system. The latter is not quite perfect but most people aren't likely to go looking beyond the operating system.
 
LC1990 said:
So about a three years ago I saw what I perceived to be child pornography on a popular pornographic upload website. I clicked off and became extremely distressed. Since that time I have had anxiety about being charged for a sex crime ever since. Because if it happened once obviously it could have occurred before and I just didn't realize it. This occurred when I was 22 and I had been accessing pornography online since I was 16. Something I thought was a moral grey area but utterly harmless. Ive also donated every computer I have ever owned during that time period. Defragmented the hard drive but Im not a computer expert. I assume my internet access log is somewhere. My question is can someone be prosecuted for a crime for just accidentally viewing something they did not realize was illegal? Ive never searched for something that heinous purposely in my life. If someone were to answer on if I am at any risk of prosecution that would be great. Regardless of if this is a stupid question it would cause me some relief of longterm anxiety.
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Only the prosecutors in the locales where this INADVERTENT MISTAKE occurred can provide you with a definitive, NO, WE'RE NOT PROSECUTING YOU!

That said, if it was one time, inadvertently viewing the alleged "kiddie porn" three long years ago, I doubt that you're being probed today.

I suggest if such odd occurrences bother you, mate, cease looking at all Internet porn as of this very moment.
 
LC1990 said:
So about a three years ago I saw what I perceived to be child pornography on a popular pornographic upload website. I clicked off and became extremely distressed. Since that time I have had anxiety about being charged for a sex crime ever since. Because if it happened once obviously it could have occurred before and I just didn't realize it. This occurred when I was 22 and I had been accessing pornography online since I was 16. Something I thought was a moral grey area but utterly harmless. Ive also donated every computer I have ever owned during that time period. Defragmented the hard drive but Im not a computer expert. I assume my internet access log is somewhere. My question is can someone be prosecuted for a crime for just accidentally viewing something they did not realize was illegal? Ive never searched for something that heinous purposely in my life. If someone were to answer on if I am at any risk of prosecution that would be great. Regardless of if this is a stupid question it would cause me some relief of longterm anxiety.
Click to expand...

Three years and no one is after you? You can stop worrying about it. Also stop downloading porn. If you're that worried about inadvertent child porn stop looking at porn all together.

I'm confused why you would think after three years you still had anything to worry about.
 

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