The trial of former Infoseek Corp executive Patrick Naughton has been declared a mistrial, after the jury failed to reach a verdict on two of the three charges against him. Naughton has been convicted of possession of child pornography and faces ten years in jail on that charge. But jurors could not decide whether he crossed state lines with intent to have sex with a minor or whether he used the internet to set up that meeting. If he had been found guilty of the latter charges, Naughton could have faced a total of forty years in prison.
Defense attorney Donald Marks argued that the government sought to entrap Naughton, well known since his days as one of the leaders of Java development at Sun Microsystems Inc. They’ve got the biggest fish they could ever catch in their net, Marks told the jury. The core of Naughton’s defense was that he never really believed the person he was talking to was under age. In fact, she was not the 13-year-old she claimed to be, but a 28-year-old Sheriff’s deputy named Amber Braaton, who assisted in Naughton’s arrest when he met her on Santa Monica pier.
