United States v. Grabau, No. 23-1741 (8th Cir. 2024)
Annotate this CaseThis case concerns the appeal of Gordon Grabau's sentence for receiving child pornography, with the appellant arguing that the district court erred in applying a two-level enhancement because he knowingly distributed child pornography. The United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision, maintaining that Grabau, who was a field technician for a technology company and held a bachelor's degree in computer science, demonstrated superior knowledge about how software works. This knowledge, in conjunction with his use of the peer-to-peer file-sharing program BitTorrent and his possession of a large collection of child pornography, was deemed by the court as sufficient evidence that Grabau knowingly distributed child pornography. Therefore, the application of the two-level enhancement was found to be appropriate.
Court Description: [Grasz, Author, with Kelly and Erickson, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Sentencing. The district court did not err in applying a two-level enhancement under Guidelines Sec. 2G2.2(b)(3)(F) for knowingly distributing child pornography as there was direct evidence of defendant's knowledge of distribution beyond the simple fact that the files were transferred through a file-sharing program.
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