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Thursday, March 22, 2012

News / Religion / Games Today in Catholic Priests Linked to Nintendo DS Game Consoles Containing Child Pornography

Posted by on Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 11:12 AM

In Montana. From The Missoulian:

A Catholic priest at a Kalispell parish has been charged with felony sexual abuse of children for allegedly possessing digital images of nude boys on his computer. Rudolph “Rudy” Carl Bullman, 67, a priest at Risen Christ Parish in Kalispell, is scheduled to enter a plea on the charge at a March 29 arraignment hearing in Flathead County District Court....According to charging documents filed Feb. 29 by Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan, the investigation into Bullman began last October when a woman called authorities to report that a Nintendo DS game console she’d purchased from Bullman contained photos of nude and underage boys.

An attempt at an explanation:

On Dec. 16, a detective with the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Bullman, who admitted using the Nintendo to view gay pornography but said he only accessed websites that clearly stated the subjects of the photos were over the age of 18. Bullman said he also viewed pornography on his computer, and agreed to let the detective search the machine. The search revealed images of young males between the ages of 12 and 18, either engaged in sexual activity or displaying their genitals, the charging document states.

Finally, this:

Bullman, a retired Libby millworker who entered the Catholic priesthood at the age of 55, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000 if convicted of the charge.

Full story here.

 

Comments (18) RSS

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Sam Machkovech 1
See, this is why police departments need nerds around when cases like this come up. The Nintendo DSi has a web browser, sure, but it doesn't save very much web history, so his excuse about the photos coming from browsed websites is baloney. The woman in question found those photos in the system's "photo" app. You have to either take the photos yourself or intentionally load them onto the SD card that comes with the system. And if you check the resolution of the photos that were found, you could tell 100% for sure that Bullman took the photos using the goddamned game system as his lens of choice.

Worse, its sound effect for when a photo is taken cannot be silenced--a preventative measure to curb Japanese boys' habit of sneaking underskirt photos of schoolmates--so whoever was in those photos knew damn well what was happening. He couldn'tt just hold the system up and fake like he was playing Nintendo while some kids changed (not that that's much better, but still).

David, can I invoice you for this entirely-too-specific analysis of underage porn on a Nintendo DSi?
Posted by Sam Machkovech http://www.samred.com on March 22, 2012 at 11:21 AM
David Schmader 2
Fascinating! (And yes, invoice away.)
Posted by David Schmader on March 22, 2012 at 11:28 AM
Allyn 3
Oh, dear.

What’s going to happen to all those arguments that it’s okay to support the catholic church (mass, funerals, weddings, tithing) NOW because they don’t abuse children NOW; all that abuse happened ages ago, we can’t hold them responsible for that behavior NOW?
Posted by Allyn on March 22, 2012 at 11:37 AM
Cato the Younger Younger 4
Montana: where the priests are priests and little boys run scared.
Posted by Cato the Younger Younger on March 22, 2012 at 11:47 AM
Rob in Baltimore 5
"Oh Kathleen, some of those priests hardly even touched those kids!"
Posted by Rob in Baltimore http://www.wishbookweb.com/ on March 22, 2012 at 11:49 AM
6
This is news????

I thought this was a daily occurrence?
Posted by sgt_doom on March 22, 2012 at 12:08 PM
7
Apparently in Risen Christ parish, Jesus wasn't the only thing rising!
Posted by fredwy on March 22, 2012 at 12:29 PM
Vince 8
The priesthood is a repository for broken psyches.
Posted by Vince on March 22, 2012 at 1:04 PM
Fnarf 9
The difference is, the pool of young fellows hoping they can pray away the pedophilia is shrinking, so they're having to recruit elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if the church is sending out form letters to all the names on the sex-offender registry. I mean, come on, it's the only good employment opportunity those dudes have left!
Posted by Fnarf http://www.facebook.com/fnarf on March 22, 2012 at 1:17 PM
venomlash 10
What the actual fuck.
Posted by venomlash on March 22, 2012 at 2:08 PM
ScrawnyKayaker 11
@5 Team KG!
Posted by ScrawnyKayaker on March 22, 2012 at 2:44 PM
brian 12
Yay Kalispell! That's why I got the fuck out of town when I turned 18.
Posted by brian on March 22, 2012 at 3:11 PM
13
@1 You answered all my questions.
Posted by floater on March 22, 2012 at 3:13 PM
Dr_Awesome 14
Sam Machkovech- Thanks for that explanation. I know nothing about how nintendos and their ilk work, not owning any of them.

Is there networking of some sort? Did the pictures have to be taken by his machine, or could they have been taken by a different nintendo, and shared with him (via the internets? or by connecting two DS's with a cable?)

Is he the only one with these pictures, or could he have shared them?
Posted by Dr_Awesome on March 22, 2012 at 6:04 PM
15
@14: you can't squirt 'em from ds to ds. You can copy them off the DS's SD card, put em on a PC and trade like that. Your questions are disconcertingly specific.
Posted by Sam M. on March 22, 2012 at 7:50 PM
Dr_Awesome 16
Er, I was afraid of that. Being 'disconcertingly specific', that is.

It's just that you mentioned the shutter noise feature of the nintendo, which opened the door to me wondering how in hell he took the pictures, or if he somehow downloaded them onto his nintendo. Meaning there's a larger population that may have the images.
Posted by Dr_Awesome on March 22, 2012 at 9:41 PM
aureolaborealis 17
@12: Got out of Libby when i was 8, before the vermiculite or the priests could get at me.
Posted by aureolaborealis on March 22, 2012 at 9:54 PM
Knat 18
It's always such a thrill to see one's hometown make the news. I'm sure brian and aureolaborealis know what I'm talking about.
Posted by Knat on March 24, 2012 at 7:15 PM

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