Plea to Possessing Child Porn Not a Bar to Second Prosecution

A plea agreement resolving claims that a Vermont man possessed child pornography didn’t bar a later prosecution when the electronic evidence seized in the initial search later revealed that the defendant had also produced pornography, the Second Circuit ruled.

The plea agreement stated that the federal government wouldn’t prosecute Cory Johnson “for any other criminal offenses known to the United States” related to his “possession or distribution of pornography.”

Johnson couldn’t reasonably expect that the plea agreement absolved him of future prosecution for an undiscovered crime, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in an opinion by ...