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| Robert Thomas Flibotte Photo courtesy Payson Police Dept. |
Sentencing scheduled for August 22 in Gila County Superior Court in Payson
By Carolyn Wall
The jury trial for Robert Thomas Flibotte, 74, which began July 19, before Judge Peter J. Cahill in Gila County Superior Court in Globe ended Wednesday, July 27, with the 12-person jury finding the former Payson Realtor guilty on 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a class 2 felony.
The case had numerous hearings in Superior Court in Payson since Flibotte's arrest by Payson Police in 2009.
According to the Payson Police report dated October 2009, four technicians reported seeing numerous images of children under the age of 18 engaged in explicit sexual activity on Flibotte’s computer when they were attempting to clean out viruses.
Flibotte stated that the images on his computer were there from a virus, that he had nothing to do with it, that he did not download any images and that the flash drive found in the coffee cup in his residence was a flash drive from his work that somebody had probably put on his desk.
The case went before the Grand Jury and Flibotte was subsequently arrested for sexual exploitation of a minor - distributing, transporting, exhibiting, receiving, selling or purchasing. He was booked into the Gila County Jail in Payson and bailed out on a $100,000 bond three days later.
Since then, Flibotte, with his attorneys Elizabeth Flynn and Michael Bernays, appeared in Superior Court in Payson numerous times, prompting Judge Cahill to say at a case management hearing in July 2010, “Looking at this type of evidence, because it’s digital and in a computer, is always challenging.”
The 12-person jury apparently was up to the challenge and found Flibotte guilty on 10 counts, all class 2 felonies considered dangerous crimes against children.
Prosecutors Lacy Cooper and Ramai Alvarez argued that Flibotte had been in possession of electronically visual depictions of minors engaged in exploitive exhibition or other sexual conduct. Police said they found images of minor individuals and other pictures of child pornography on a computer.
Flibotte's defense team argued that the images were caused from a computer virus.
Payson Police Chief Don Engler commended the investigators and prosecutors on their handling of the case. "I was very pleased with the case and the resolution," Engler said. "The Gila County Attorney's Office did an excellent job of prosecuting the case and the team work between their office and our investigations unit is outstanding. Justice is served when you have a cohesive prosecution team consisting of the case detective and prosecutors."
After the Grand Jury indicted Flibotte on 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and issued a warrant for his arrest, Engler, detectives and officers with the Payson Police Department served the warrant for the arrest of Flibotte the following day, Oct. 8, 2009, at his residence and booked him into the Gila County Jail.
According to Engler's statement in the 13-page police report, Flibotte’s computer had been impounded by Payson Police after technicians working on viruses on the computer in their shop discovered images that contained explicit sexual activity involving children under the age of 18.
According to the police report, the technicians looking through the computer to find the viruses discovered the pornography in the backup folder in the data drive.
One of the technicians said the girls in the pictures appeared to be between 8 and 12 years old. He also said the images appeared to be actual photos that were scanned into the computer, and not downloaded from the internet.
According to the report, one of the technicians stated “that it made him sick to his stomach and he decided to memorialize the evidence by creating a video tape of one screen shot of a photograph, which he provided to (an officer) on a flash drive.”
When asked how many images they had seen, one of the men said there were “more than they even wanted to try to count.”
After being contacted by the technicians, police obtained a search warrant for Flibotte’s residence and place of business, which they served on Oct. 5, 2009.
Engler and a number of detectives and a Payson Police officer went to Flibotte’s home and talked to him privately in his home office, away from his wife.
One of the detectives explained the reason for the search warrant and Flibotte reportedly said that he had seen at least 50 images come up on his screen while he was searching the website for Disney, looking for the Disney character, Ariel, with his granddaughter. He said the images of the young girls involved in sexual acts kept popping up on his screen.
According to the police report, he said he had no control over the images popping up, that they would just do it automatically, and that just recently he realized his computer was operating on two systems and he could not turn it off, that it was downloading photos from the internet on its own.
During the search of Flibotte’s residence, police took into evidence a number of flash drives, zip drives, floppy disks and CDs and DVDs. Of 11 thumb drives found in a coffee cup, police took one into evidence that had data on it with files dating from 2007 and 2008 and a folder that included 26 photos of young girls under the age of 18.
According to the police report, the girls in the photos “were engaged in exploitive exhibition or other sexual conduct” All of these images are illegal under sexual exploitation of a minor, ARS 13-3553A2, to possess.
While Engler was searching the file folders in the filing cabinet, he found a printed document from 2007 titled, “How to Hide Porn on Your Computer.” All these items were seized and placed into evidence.
During a subsequent search at Flibotte’s workplace, police obtained a number of flash drives, several zip drive disks and floppy disks from his office for evidence.
During the interview with police, Flibotte repeatedly stated that the images on his computer were there from a virus, that he had nothing to do with it. He also stated that the flash drive found in the coffee cup was from his work that somebody had probably put on his desk.
Flibotte further denied that he had downloaded, saved, or possessed any images of sexual exploitation of a minor, that it all was an accident and that he had nothing to do with it.
Flibotte is scheduled to appear for sentencing before Judge Cahill in Gila County Superior Court in Payson August 22 at 2 p.m.
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