University professor files motion to suppress evidence against child porn charge.
A suspended Ohio University business professor arrested this winter on charges related to the download of child pornography has filed a motion to suppress evidence held against his case.
Amol T. Kharabe, 42, requested Athens County Common Pleas Court Judge George McCarthy to suppress evidence obtained during a search warrant investigators from Athens Police Department executed last fall.
Kharabe faces 21 felony counts, while investigators maintain he downloaded child pornography on an IP address on the OU network.
Nine of those felonies come from a superseding indictment this spring and Kharabe cannot be convicted on all of the crimes. He’s pleaded not guilty to all 21 counts.
Investigators searched Kharabe’s possessions at his University Courtyard apartment. The operation stemmed from a Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force tip that Kharabe was downloading pornographic material involving minors.
Kharabe was arrested this winter at his Dublin house.
In a court document filed last month, Thomas Tyack, Kharabe’s attorney, argued that investigators did not obtain a warrant based on probable cause to search the contents of that computer equipment.
In the motion, Tyack called the investigators’ warrant overly broad and invalid, and said it violated the Fourth Amendment. He called for McCarthy to suppress “any and all evidence or information” obtained during that Richland Avenue search.
An Assistant Athens County Prosecutor, Robert Driscoll, countered that position in an Aug. 15 filing with the court.
Driscoll maintains there was sufficient probable cause to seize any equipment. He has asked the court to deny Kharabe the chance for a hearing to discuss any possible suppression.
“Further, with any computer crime, taking all of the equipment associated with the computer is only reasonable, as every part is part of the instrumentality of the crime,” Driscoll wrote.
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