Judge Orders US Attorney To Take Care Of Sex Offender's Pets

Chief U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum surprised a courtroom full of federal agents, prosecutors and public defenders Tuesday when he sentenced a man who collected child pornography to less than half the recommended time behind bars.
He also ordered Assistant U.S. Attorney William Otteson to find someone to take care of the St. Paul man's pet cat, "Mike."
Rosenbaum has no love for child pornographers. Last May, he sentenced a 53-year-old Burnsville man to 750 years in prison for taking lascivious photographs of two young relatives and three of their friends and posting them to the Internet.
But he gave Frederick Kennedy-Hippchen, 63, just four years for collecting similar pictures.
Cynthia Brown, a computer expert with the FBI, testified at a hearing Tuesday that Kennedy-Hippchen was downloading child porn when agents arrived to search his St. Paul apartment in January 2006.
Brown said he had installed the Lime Wire file-sharing program to find media files based on specific search terms.
Otteson said investigators found more than 600 images on his computer. The fact that Kennedy-Hippchen used Lime Wire indicated that he was sharing the images with others, he argued.
Kennedy-Hippchen admitted downloading the images but denied sharing them. "I never thought that anything was going out," he told Rosenbaum.
Rosenbaum noted that Kennedy-Hippchen had disabled Lime Wire's chat function and disabled its automatic start-up setting. Those facts, together with the fact that he had a slow dial-up connection to the Internet, made him "a stunningly unattractive partner for file sharing," he concluded.
Kennedy-Hippchen's attorney, Timothy Anderson, argued for probation. He said his client's reprehensible conduct should not obliterate a lifetime of volunteering and good works.
Kennedy-Hippchen earned a master's degree in theology and a master's in divinity equivalency, Anderson noted. He has worked in chemical dependency counseling and recently completed paralegal course work.
Charles Rader, a forensic psychologist who said he nearly always testifies for the government in such cases, said the defendant retreated from social contacts after a bitter divorce, which may have contributed to viewing child pornography.
"There was no previous history," he said. "I'm reasonably comfortable he will not re-offend."
Rosenbaum agreed. "There is no evidence that this defendant is likely to further offend," he said.
But prison sentences also serve a deterrence function, Rosenbaum said. He determined that the federal sentencing guidelines call for Kennedy-Hippchen to serve 97 to 121 months in prison (though the law caps the term at 10 years). Then he rejected the term as excessive.
"I think the guideline is well beyond what is needed," he said, for a man who merely looked at prohibited pictures but did nothing to produce them. He sentenced him to 48 months in prison followed by supervised release for life.
Rosenbaum ordered Kennedy-Hippchen taken into custody, saying he was deeply concerned that he would harm himself.
But Kennedy-Hippchen pleaded for a chance to turn himself in later, saying he needed time to find someone to take his cat and tropical fish. Tracy Perzel, an assistant U.S. Attorney awaiting another hearing, daubed a tear from her eyes.
Rosenbaum asked Otteson if he could assure the court that the government could take care of the pets. After checking with FBI agents, Otteson said he could not, as he knew of nothing authorizing the FBI to do that.
"Oh yes you can," Rosenbaum boomed. "You can take that on an emergency basis to the 8th Circuit [Court of Appeals] if you like," he said. "Somebody's got to take care of the animals!"