Bizarre, Criminal law

Washington Man Arrested After Interviewing For Police Job . . . And Revealing A Child Porn Habit

Unknown-1Daniel Salata, 32, violated the first cardinal rule of interviews: Never incriminate yourself in any criminal conduct in the course of your interview. Most people seem to be able to navigate around possible crimes fairly easily but Salata not only opted to disclose a penchant for child pornography but did it in an interview for a job with the Mount Vernon Police Department. The result of the incriminating statements made in pre-employment screening has now led to his rapid introduction to the criminal justice system . . . as a defendant.

During the pre-employment process, Salata disclosed that he views and stores child porn on his home computers. The officers that he hoped to serve with then served him with a search warrant and removed three computers, external hard drives, and other computer components. They turned out, according to the police, to contain more than 340 images and one video depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Police also found installed data destruction software that could be used to destroy evidence of such crimes.

Salata is now booked on suspicion of four counts of first-degree and second-degree possession of child pornography — two counts bringing a maximum of 10-year terms. It is likely that additional charges will be filed.

Usually, the best tips for interviews follow such lines as “don’t sit in the biggest chair in the room” or “wear something professional.” The “don’t incriminate yourself” is usually understood but seems to escape some folks. Indeed, the case is reminiscent of another case where an interview produced incriminating evidence of pornography.

Tough interviews and even tougher call backs.

Source: Komo News

10 thoughts on “Washington Man Arrested After Interviewing For Police Job . . . And Revealing A Child Porn Habit”

  1. One last article and excerpt about New York State Police Trooper David Harding, mentioned in my comment at 7:47 am:

    http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/15/nyregion/trooper-s-fall-shakes-both-police-and-public.html?pagewanted=all

    Excerpt:

    “The confidence and hubris that the investigator showed in and out of court, ultimately led to his downfall.

    In early 1991 he applied to the Central Intelligence Agency for a job in covert operations. Despite being told by C.I.A. interviewers in Virginia that any admission of guilt in a serious crime would be brought to the attention of the proper police authorities, Mr. Harding boasted during a lie detector test that he had faked evidence in several criminal investigations.

    He also admitted stealing $1,000 in a state police drug sting operation, falsifying the weight of seized cocaine to charge a suspect with a more serious crime and a string of smaller thefts.

    “The C.I.A. was recruiting me to work in a counter-terrorist unit, and they wanted bad guys,” Mr. Harding recalled when he was confronted by the state police.

    “They told me, ‘We don’t want any choir or altar boys and we don’t want any Boy Scouts.’ ”

    It took 15 months for the C.I.A.’s information to filter through the Justice Department in Washington and reach state police headquarters in Albany, said Mr. Roth, the special prosecutor.

    What was particularly troubling to law-enforcement officials and lawyers who looked back on Mr. Harding’s career was the ease with which he had ignored state police protocol to fabricate evidence in a way that was never challenged by his superiors.

    In all four cases — three involving murder and the fourth a brutal assault on an elderly man — the investigator produced incriminating fingerprints of suspects already under scrutiny. In each Mr. Harding produced prints he said he had lifted at a crime scene or photographs of the prints he had lifted.

    In none of the cases did he present exhibits actually showing the prints on the surfaces that he said he had lifted them from.

    For example, in the case of a robbery and assault that left an 81-year-old Tompkins County man near death with a fractured skull, Mr. Harding asserted that he had found a single fingerprint of a suspect, Mark A. Prentice, on a kitchen sink in the victim’s home where the attack took place. Confronted with the physical evidence, Mr. Prentice confessed to the crime.

    But when the state police, after receiving the C.I.A. tip last spring, sent the fingerprint and other evidence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s laboratory, the F.B.I. determined “conclusively” that it was not taken from the sink as Mr. Harding had claimed, Mr. Roth said.

    Instead, Mr. Harding had taken the print from a beer bottle found in the suspect’s home, Mr. Roth said.

    “If I was prosecuting this case,” Mr. Roth said, “I could have obtained a guilty verdict on the strength of the fingerprint alone and without a confession. Fingerprints are thrilling evidence. Juries believe in them completely.”

    Despite popular impressions that fingerprint evidence figures prominently in major crimes, the reality is that the police only infrequently are able to find the kind of clearly defined prints that Mr. Harding had a knack of coming up with whenever the police needed physical evidence to nail down a circumstantial case.

    “Most of us thought this guy was either incredibly good or incredibly lucky,” said a state police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But no one ever guessed he was faking it because he seemed like such a hard-working straight arrow.””

  3. [music to The Jets]
    He’s a Chump, He’s a Chump.
    He’s a chump all the way!
    From his first cigarette to his last roll in the hay…

  4. anon
    I was just remembering the very same case. A horrific case where a whole family was murdered and burned. Harding was convinced the mother had helped the son commit and hide the crime, so he falsified fingerprint evidence. terrible tragedy all the way round.

  6. “…the first cardinal rule of interviews: Never incriminate yourself in any criminal conduct in the course of your interview.” -Jonathan Turley

    Brings back memories:

    In the 90’s New York State Police Trooper David Harding when asked in a CIA interview if he would be willing to break the law to protect his country boasted that he had fabricated evidence in cases were he believed suspects guilty. The CIA was not impressed and turned him in. The Harding case uncovered similar corruption that led to the arrest of several state troopers including Lt. Craig Harvey, a sixteen-year veteran of the force for planting and falsifying evidence.

    http://www.post-journal.com/page/blogs.detail/display/539/CRIMINAL-JUSTICE-BLOOD-LUST.html

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Police_Troop_C_scandal

  8. KOMO, the source of the report, is in Seattle, Washington (all K-designated radio/TV stations are west of the Mississippi river). Also, note the image of the state of Washington on the Mt Vernon police uniform patch.

    Your proof reader is out sick, again?

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