Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: We are live.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Welcome to the house judiciary committee this Wednesday morning, January twenty eighth. We're continuing to take testimony on h six two six and activated the lawyer team and disclosure of sexually explicit images without consent. On the agenda, just say Michelle Child, I just had her down so that she can know that we're taking this testimony. We're not gonna hear from her till this afternoon on the next draft of the bill, but we're gonna start with Sierra. You know, Kiara, I Thank you so much for being here. You could identify yourself for the record and proceed. Appreciate you being here. Thank you.

[Kira Kilburn]: Of course. Hi, everyone. My name is Pure Kilburn. I'm currently residing in Georgia, Vermont. Thank you for having me today and for hearing what I have to say. I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you and to share my story as a survivor of image based abuse. While I was at work, I had learned that a video of me undressing had been posted on a pornographic website. Years earlier, a trusted college film professor invited me and my underage sister to participate in a public access TV video track for class credit. The concept of the video included many outfit changes, which we did in a storage closet that he directed us to change in. He recorded us changing the hidden camera and uploaded it to the Internet. At the time I was 19 and my sister was 22. I did not discover this video until several years later. Discovery was life shattering. It felt like my future flashed before my eyes. I'd always heard and had grown up being taught that what you put on the internet stays there forever. And that fear became my reality. I panicked, take my career very seriously. For the past ten years, I've served my community in homeless services and domestic violence services. I had a very real fear and worry that I was gonna be fired and that my career serving our community and those who are less fortunate would be over. I worried about my family members seeing this video, my future partner and my future children. I went to the police immediately. The detective I worked with told me at the time that it was one of the longest cases he had ever handled. But despite my immediate action and his commitment, there was nothing that could be done and no criminal charges were brought forward. The statute of limitations had expired before I even knew that the crime had happened. During the investigation, we discovered videos of other young people he recorded in restrooms and changing rooms. They had also discovered the perpetrator. Thank you. The perpetrator had searched online the statute of limitations in Vermont. He knew exactly what he was doing. I did not get the justice that I wanted. I wanted him to be held accountable under criminal court for harming me and my underage sister and abusing my trust. I wanted my community to know he was dangerous, So no one else would be harmed the way that I was. Instead, I carried weight of this for the rest of my life while he goes unharmed. I was later diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. It has been incredibly difficult to process how deeply I was violated without even knowing what was happening to me at the time. When I'm in public, I'm still terrified that I'm being recorded at any moment without my consent. I want people, especially children to be and feel safe and to be able to trust the adults around them. While this law cannot help me, it can help others and it can assure that they are protected and able to access justice. Knowing that they would be knowing this would be incredibly meaningful to me. Thank you for your work on all of this issue and for taking the time to listen to my story.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Sorry if I had to go through this. I'll admit this will certainly help. Angela?

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Hi, thank you so much for being here, and I just want you to know that, unequivocally, this bill is it exists because you were willing to come forward. It was inspired by a few of us reading coverage you know, reading about your story and just feeling that something had to change. And so it really is because of your willingness and your advocacy that this is happening. Thank you. So thank you so much.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Would you take any questions? I don't know if we have questions.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: I don't see any,

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: but thank you very yeah. Go ahead, Kenneth. I appreciate you being here. It's very important. I'm sorry what you're going through. And one thing I wanna say is hopefully this bill passes, and hopefully it gives you some sort of relief of what's going on in your life, because it's horrendous.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[Kira Kilburn]: I'm available to speak afterwards if anyone would like to.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So we'll go to Thomas Chanette. Did I pronounce that right? You did. Thank you for being here. Alright. Laurie, if you could identify yourself for the record and see.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: Tom Chanat. I was a Burlington police detective. I retired after this past summer after twenty years of service. Now I work as an investigator for the Department of Liquor and Lottery, state employee. Alright. So so in 2018, Kara came into the police department and reported her crime. The average police officer who takes in this type of report is not is not typically equipped to handle it, and, obviously, they panic. So the first thing they do is they run to the detective bureau to find somebody who's been there and done that and seen it. So I worked on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force since 2011 as an affiliate. I've done a number of cases with them, and I had specialty training in that area. So although they weren't actual minors in this case, a lot of things still equate. A lot of the rules of procedure still apply. So from the beginning, we knew that we were at a disadvantage because she's reporting a crime that occurred in 2012 and it's 2018. Voyorism was a three year statute of limitations at the time. There's also a disclosure of images without consent, which was also it was beyond the statute of limitations for that. So by the time we went to the He worked at a media company. The individual we're talking about is named Bill Clairman's I apologize, Bill Sindem. He worked at a media company, and he was a part time professor at CCB. Before that, he was also a professor at Burlington College, which came into play a little later on. So from jump, we were at a disadvantage. He wasn't willing to say anything. He talked a lot about how he was on the board for the ACLU, and he's stand up person in the community and had no idea what any of this was about. So a lot of things had changed in over six years in between when it happened and there. So obviously, we didn't find much evidence. Also, we weren't able to seize his personal devices because we didn't have an underlying crime that was prosecuted. It was beyond statute of limitations. So we knew we were out of capacity. He wasn't willing to consensually give those devices. So I was forced to stand there and watch him collect what was his from his office, a bin of devices that I would have loved to have known what was on, and walk out the door. So were left with what was left in his office, which was things that were owned by VCAM that he jointly used. So he seized them and then negotiated with their counsel after the fact to be able to search those devices. And there wasn't much. There was an employee, an IT, Matt Gowdy, I believe was his name. He was the IT guy at VCAM. He came forward and said, you know, the same time frame, like five years ago, Bill had come and left a hard drive at my desk to take care of. So he plugs it in to wipe it clean to see that it's almost full. The deleted space is almost full. What is this? So he opens it up. And what he described to me was hundreds of images of child pornography. He had a seven year old at the time, so he was basing that his description of their ages of the few files that he opened off of off of his own daughter, and that they were appeared even younger. He very much regrets it, but he said he panicked and deleted the hard drive. Then goes to a meeting of everyone at VCAM and says, By the way, guys, there was a hard drive that was turned in. There was some inappropriate images on it, and we can't be doing that with work things. And he said Bill basically got white as a sheet, when he's normally very animated, then left the room. So I had that angle. I knew that likely sexualized images of children are going to be part of the case. So because of the limitations issue, we didn't get very far at first. There wasn't much to go. For search warrants, Bill wasn't talking. Eventually, Matt, out of guilt, I think, was searching other devices at VCAM that he knew that Bill had used. And he found one of interest. It was a small flash drive that had been in. They used them at GoPro cameras. And Bill was, I think, the last person to sign it out. It wasn't used very often. He, in that video, saw very clearly Bill wearing his V cam attire in the bathroom, placing the camera, looking at himself. And then it was clearly a bathroom. He was focused on a shower. Later found out he was mounted above the toilet, like, secreted in front of a box of tissues. That video showed five four college age folks, boys and girls, and one adult female coming and using the bathroom, showering, fully noon, also met the criteria for lawyers. So in this case, unfortunately, there weren't just two victims. There was by the end of it, there were there were eight victims who got no justice because of the statute of orientations. When I was able to finally identify those those kids as having attended Burlington College, where Bill worked previously, they went on my class trip to the South by Southwest Festival, I believe, in Texas. It's a media movie festival. So while staying at an Airbnb there, he secreted this camera. So I tracked down, identified, tracked down, and talked to all of these kids. And unfortunately, this event happened also outside of the possession of the patients. I looked into the Texas laws, see if they could maybe prosecute them there. But they also had a section of limitations. That was, in my opinion, very, very antiquated and not up to date with this type of crime, which was my main grip about the Vermont law as well. So it was very frustrating to try to get this prosecuted. Because there was a question of when this video was made, especially, I was able to obtain a it may have been within the statute of limitations, I was able to get a sympathetic judge to write a search warrant for Simmons' residence. So it was, I don't know, it a good day for me to be able to bring 10 officers to his house and make himself a corner while we tore apart his entire house and get every little device out of there. He was very careful. The one thing that we weren't able to search was his personal iMac computer. It was a very large computer. And he had some encryption software on there, and he also had password that must have been about a mile long because I called in favors. I sent that thing to the secret service. They tried millions of combinations and were not able to get into that computer. Then after, when I was able to identify the kids, learn that the video was older, that angle was dead in the water, fortunately. Had the statute been longer, even now, there is an image of that computer and all terabytes of it sitting in evidence at Burlington PD that if the statute of limitations were longer, I could get a search warrant today. I'm certain that five years later, the Secret Service would be able to get into that computer. And I can only imagine, based on child pornography angle, what happened to Kara, that what's going to be on that, what would be on that computer today. So I wish that it would be longer because of that. Also, there was a woman who reached out to me because she saw the case in the news once civil trial occurred. And she said that she had been in a relationship with Bill about ten years earlier and had had consensual sex with him. And unbeknownst to her, he had filmed it. And then she found it online. She found the video of the two of them. She was very upset about this. Two lives in another state now. So I looked into their laws. I looked into Arsenault. And again, it's beyond the statute of limitations. Sorry. Can't help. So it's very, very frustrating. One other thing that I would love to see be a part of this bill is a portion that would talk about the power dynamic between folks. I mean, this individual was her professor, one of her professors at school. And I think the same rings true for if it's your boss at work or someone in a position of authority over you. I think that is an important piece that I didn't read in the initial reading of this that I would to see included, because I think it absolutely fits for this type

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: of practice.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: You done with your written or your testimony?

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: Yeah, I did submit my report this morning. I found a chunk of my report. Oh, great. Great. So if you want to

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: read all the details. Great. Thank you. Tom and Angela.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: I'm just wondering, in your personal opinion, in your experience, do you think the likelihood that this individual has re offended or is probably still re offended? So my knowledge base comes from people who are sexually attracted to children. They run-in circles where they make collections of these things. They go online. They find folks with similar interests, and they trade these things. And they have their own underground communities online. The same is true for people who are, for lack of a better term, into voyeurism type material. So one of the things that he did was he shared this with a group. So the initial video that came up had a water moniker down in the corner of it. It was like floral plague or something like that. That was the underlying company that had it. So once these things are traded online, which absolutely was him, you lose control of it. And so in order to monetize it, you take it, you moniker it, you might water it down a little bit as far as description of what you found hidden under in the dark web. And then you put it on legitimate pornographic websites that actually pay you money. So also in 2020, I want to say, where Kira finds is also told about the video popping up again on a mainstream pornography site. And this time, it's a little bit different. It had at the beginning of it well, first, the title was something something like Sisters Get Spied at a Fake Modeling Gig. That's pretty specific. You don't have underlying knowledge of how this video came to be. Also, at the beginning was montage of photographs of her from her personal Facebook page, which you had to be a friend of hers to be able to see. And at the time that she was taking the class, Simmons had friended her on Facebook. He kept these images. He put them in the front end of the video. Then he had the video of her and her sister and and put it out there for the world to see. So she was identifiable from those from those photos. He put it out for all of his all of his creeper friends to get to see. And that's one way to to monetize it. If you have look at this great video I have, guys will trade you anything. Bitcoin, other videos. They they want this type of content. So once you're in this world and you're trading to get back to your original question, this is this is what they do. This is how they get their gratification out of it is they continue to trade in it and and live in those underground circles. It's their thing. Yes. Yes. So based on that, I did get a subpoena for the for the website in case it had been billed and uploaded that video. Obviously, came from him initially, but it actually traced back to an individual in Turkey who trades in this type of pornography, collects it, puts it on these websites, monetizes it by getting used.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Thank you, detective. When you say that we should address the existence of a power imbalance in the bill. Are you thinking as an enhancement or something if the recording is made by someone who is in a position of power or authority or care or something like

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: Absolutely, yes. Yes, which mirrors one of the I finished my career in the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations. That was an element we looked at for sex assault and also

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Did you do that for

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: It was another

[Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: what? For a movie? Yes,

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: yeah.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Which we call something else. Yeah, it's the

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: part of which is enticement. Thank

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: you. Other questions for the detective? So did you have a chance to look at the bill, other suggestions? It sounds like you had one thing. The You is looking at the polar pandemic. The other opinion, for instance, we're considering or probably going to seven to forty years to have some limitations instead of what's in the bill, which is a discovery element six years after discovery.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: That would have been great for this case. But as we know, the internet is forever. So that would, going back forty years, predate the Internet really really coming to be. But this is a this is a forever crime. A hundred years from now, this video likely will be able to be found.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. And this is going forward. Change to criminal statute of limitations is for conduct from here on forward.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: Just So using this example. Things on the internet never go away. So that is outstanding, forty years. I would love to see it be a forever crime. I know that we you know, hold the forever moniker for, you know, homicides and aggravated murder.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'll tell you again how it would work as far as if the statute of limitations changes that give you that would give you a basis to seek a warrant.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: So in this case, because my underlying crime, I I knew from the beginning that it was beyond the statute of limitations, I knew I wouldn't be able to get a cert warrant. So in good faith, then, you Fruit of the Poisonous Tree, go and seize those items at that time or even go to his house before I had my initial evidence.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: But it wouldn't necessarily if we changed for forty years, you're not going to be able to get a new warrant based on crimes that happened before the passage of the law. Is that right? I'm just trying to move towards

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: when the law so moving forward.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, well, moving forward, we've changed the statute limitations, but you can't go essentially pre that law being passed to get a warrant for something that's happened before we pass this law. Is that right? Okay. I just want to Yes. I understand that.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: But I think we're both here for victims of the future.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, absolutely. No, I understood. Understood. I just wanted some clarification because that wasn't entirely clear to that. Barbara and Ian, did I think Angela again?

[Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: Thank you so much for being here. I apologize for being late. I'm wondering, in the situation where you said Bill's former girlfriend came forward, was the only element that kept you from charging the statute of limitations? Because I know there were some other issues with that law when we passed it related to, one, if the person moved out of state, I think was one issue, And if it was revenge, right? Like there was some issue there. So I'm just wondering.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: The biggest issue there was she knew that the relationship was ten years prior and that the video was filmed ten years prior. Also, think Vega had been on the website where she was alerted to it being found. They had been there for a while, had many, many views, but they had been there longer than because every time it's reshared, you could restart the phone on that crime. So that's an angle that we've certainly tried. At the time, Dana DeSano, who's now she was Chittenden when she was at the attorney general's office, and now she's a sitting judge of the state. We read and read the statutes trying to find something that would fit this. I also tried, because at the time of the filming, her sister was 17. In the federal system, they look at a minor as under the age of 18. So I even called in some favors and tried to sell it to the feds. But they basically said, know, had a sex act occurred, they would have taken it. But because it's nudity, it just couldn't meet their threshold. It just couldn't justify.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So it was being interest paid.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: Right. Yeah, that wasn't They would have been looking at it under the child pornography statute, they just didn't feel it would get fired off the nurses.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Just two questions. Thank you very much for your testimony. It's very helpful to get the full story. Two questions are, one, could you get a Obviously, couldn't, but could you try to get an inquest subpoena with the idea being that you've got some evidence that there's a crime happening here? I'm sort of curious, or what? Like, that there's ongoing wire ism or I'm something like I'm just was that also denied or is that

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: an angle that you could go? So so subpoenas from from my understanding, how I always dealt with them, subpoenas were for records, information. The content of of his accounts is what I would have been going after. So I would have taken a search warrant. Yeah. And now we just we just didn't have it. Yeah. Dana and I brainstormed heavily. Stop returning that.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah. And then my only other question was, it was mentioned that he had searched the statute of limitations that the individual had, like, at some point. Did that relate to I don't really know how you knew that. Did he wait to post this material until after the session?

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: So I think that that was something that he admitted to. Is that no? He hired

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: a private forensic IT, and they had that on his search engines, and they also found him getting hidden cameras through Amazon. And that was through my civil case. We discovered that.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: Also, did admit guilt in the civil case, knowing that it was not verbally prosecuted.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Angela? I was just going to point out that civil action, with the change in the statute, the removal of the statute of limitations on the civil side, would allow for new cases to be brought or civil offenses that happened before the enactment.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: It applies to a slide.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Yeah, retroactively. Thank you. Much There is a one word.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: There was one word.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Description. So it would apply retroactively on the civil side, but not criminal.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: That's how I thought.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: More for you, I think.

[Thomas (Tom) Chanette]: When was it St. Joseph's orphanage where we did some work? Yeah, we we did the civil didn't we I thought we worked on well, I remember that we worked on statute of limitations stuff with that case where they could go back and and charge. Not on the criminal side. It was civil. It was that was civil too. Okay. I hope we have an investigation too. We'd love to do

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Any other questions? Thank you very much. Appreciate Thank you for having me. So I asked Kenneth McManus to come over to little room. She's scheduled to testify, but not having a witness currently. We will appear until further notice or 10:00 if she manages to come over here.