BUCYRUS – Detective Aaron Greenberg, an Evidence Recovery Specialist in a Digital Environment, was employed by the Cuyahoga City Prosecutor when asked to investigate images found on a Samsung Tablet believed to be used by Joshua Benedict as he allegedly committed sexual crimes against children. His role was to look for evidence of crimes on the Tablet.
Greenberg used a particular program to read the data from the Tablet.
Although Greenberg could not trace dark web material directly to Benedict, he established that Benedict had used the Tablet to access Google, Facebook, and email accounts.
When asked if a person could access child porn by using the detected search engines, Greenberg told the court that while it’s not entirely impossible, Google has measures in place to try to prevent those types of services from populating.
Greenberg testified that he found pictures and digital that were pornographic relating to this search and critical words and email addresses.
Crawford County Prosecutor, Matt Crall, presented several images of horrific pornography that included infant and preteen photographs, diaper changing, and preteen genitalia images. Greenberg told the jury the email address is significant because it reflects who was using the Tablet.
In cross-examination, Adam Stone had Greenberg explain that he could not trace pornography directly to Benedict while he could trace emails.
“There is no way to tell who searched the terms, is there?” Stone asked.
Greenberg agreed.