Re: Zona Labs Was: Cambridge [MA] Cops Assault Mother for Photo

["Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>]

This is only relevant to cypherpunks as it involves child porn hysteria
and abusive cops... Let me start by saying the attached message from
warwick.com is wildly incorrect:

  * Zona film labs employees did not lead the child away until
afterwards. The police grabbed Angeli, beat her, choked her -- while her
child was just a few feet away.

  * The mother flipped when the Cambridge cops said she was going to be
locked up and her child taken away.

  * The lamp was knocked over when the Cambridge cops wrestled her into
the back room.

  * Zona film lab employees willingly participated in this sting
operation and willingly lied to Angeli.

Last week, I went to Angeli's attorney's office and saw the
(unpublished) pictures that the Cambridge cops and Zona thought were
"child porn." They're not "child porn" -- any more than the similar
photos my grandparents have of me and my cousins naked in a bathtub when
we were three years old.

I urge you to check out Bob Chatelle's web site at
http://world.std.com/~kip/, which says what actually happened with the
Angeli case. I've attached an excerpt from his pages below.

-Declan



Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 4-Mar-96 Re: Zona Labs  Was:
Cambrid.. by news@warwick.com 
> Ayse Sercan wrote:
>  
> > At any rate, if I were the mother, and my kid was being led away by a
> > clerk who could have been the very pervert who thought that those nude
> > pictures meant child pornography, I'd certainly do everything in my power
> > to protect my child from such an individual.
>  
> That's rediculous. The mother did not flip because Zona led the child away.
> The mother flipped when asked about the photos. This caused Zona to not
> want the child to see argument. The mother just has serious problems in
> general. She feels justified in trashing the place and throwing the lamp,
> which is why she refused the punishment and took 30 days in jail. She,
> in the presence of her child, was wrong to get violent. She has a lack of
> control.


>From http://world.std.com/~kip/
   
   Toni Marie Angeli, for a Harvard photography course, decided to make  
   her four-year-old son Nico the subject of her final class project, The
   Innocence of a Child's Nudity. After discussing the project with her
   professor, Angeli began her project with a few shots of Nico and made 
   the fatal mistake of taking her roll of film to Zona Photographic Labs
   on Rogers Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Zona owners were   
   "alarmed" and called the Cambridge police, who went to Zona, looked at
   contact sheets prepared by Zona without Angeli's authorization, and
   decided that the pictures were "gross." Zona and the Cambridge police
   set up a sting operation, requiring Zona employees to lie, so that the
   police could come to Zona and confront her about her "pornography"
   when she came to pick up her negatives. On November 2, Angeli went to
   Zona, accompanied by Nico and by her husband, Luke D'Ancona. An
   altercation ensued when Angeli realized why the police were there.
   Angeli was handcuffed, manhandled into a back room, beaten and choked.
   During the scuffle a lamp was knocked over, and a picture fell off the
   wall. A hollow core door was also damaged when Angeli kicked out as
   she was being escorted to the police van.
   
   Angeli was never charged with child pornography, but she was charged
   with disorderly conduct, malicious destruction of property under $250,
   and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. (The police claimed  
   that Angeli threw the lamp.). Angeli's trial began on January 24,   
   1996, and a verdict was brought in on January 30. She was acquitted of
   the assault-and-battery charges, but convicted on the two other       
   counts. The judge sentenced her to pay damages, to 50 hours community
   service, and to 18 months of probation. Angeli refused to sign the    
   probation contract, stating that she wished to make no admission of
   guilt. The judge then sentenced her to 30 days at MCI Framingham. We 
   are currently trying to raise money to pay for her appeal.