Ronald Kline, 66, a former Superior Court judge from Irvine, California, offered
a "life time of apologies" before collapsing in a Los Angeles courtroom on
Tuesday after learning he faces 27 months in federal prison for possessing more
than 100 illicit images of children -- files exposed to police by Mr. Willman
through a "Trojan Horse" computer virus he used to identify dozens of
child-porn predators across North America.
Now 26, the Langley, B.C., resident says he's still proud of "doing my own
thing to help people out. It was a lot better than ignoring what was going on."
But he acknowledged a bittersweet reaction to the end of a case that also ended
his crusade to ferret out some of North America's worst child-porn offenders.
"In some ways," Mr. Willman said in an interview yesterday, his pursuit of Mr.
Kline "was a lot more trouble than it was worth" because it put him out of
business as a citizen crime-fighter.
"It's good that it's finally come to a resolution after all these years," he
said. "It's definitely satisfying that he got caught. I just kind of wish it
had gone in a different way. I was told by police that what I did was illegal
and that if I continued, they would have to charge me. So there was no option."
Investigators and anti-porn advocates have praised Mr. Willman. But his
vigilante exploits led a US district court in 2003 to toss out the charges
against Mr. Kline, ruling that the B.C. teenager was essentially acting as an
agent of police and gathering evidence illegally.
Then, in 2004, a US federal appeals court overturned that ruling and upheld the
charges against Mr. Kline.
"No law enforcement agency involved in the case knew or could possibly have
known that Willman was illegally searching computers, let alone acquiesced in
the practice," the appeal judges ruled.
Mr. Kline, who had been forced to withdraw from a re-election bid, later
entered a guilty plea on child-porno-graphy charges.
At the judge's sentencing hearing, prosecutor Gregory Staples urged a 33-month
term, arguing that "to sentence the defendant to anything other than a long
term in prison would signal that our justice system treats its own with
favour," the Orange County Register reported. "Of all people in society who
must be held strictly accountable for their crimes, it is members of the
justice system themselves."
Mr. Staples charged that Mr. Kline had "sullied the state judiciary."
When the 27-month sentence was announced, Mr. Kline -- who has a heart
condition -- slumped to the courtroom floor, but later recovered.
Dubbed "Citizen Tipster" by authorities, Mr. Willman's identity was initially
kept secret, even in police affidavits. Then, in June 2002, the Citizen
unmasked the mystery hacker, identifying him as a then-19-year-old loner who
hunted online predators from a basement room in his parents' suburban Vancouver
home.
Mr. Willman, whose online handle was "Omni-Potent," used a Trojan Horse program
disguised as a lurid image to gain control of any computer that downloaded it.
He eventually penetrated about 3,000 personal computers around the world.
Mr. Willman said at the time he had no friends at school and spent nearly all
of his free time at the computer, chewing sour candies as he hunted for
pedophiles.
He catalogued each target's file by degree of risk, and focused on suspected
child-porn producers and molesters.
"I would stay up late at night to see what I could drag out of their computers,
which turned out to be more than I expected," Mr. Willman told the Citizen in
2002. "I could read all of their e-mails without them knowing ... I could see
who they were chatting with and read what they were saying as they typed. I
judged these people by reading their incoming and outgoing e-mails. I was more
interested in actual abusers or producers. That was my priority -- not the
people that were just downloading images."
After reading Mr. Kline's electronic diary, he concluded that it showed an
apparent plot to sexually exploit young boys at a private health club. US
detectives have credited Mr. Willman with cracking the case.
"The diary he retrieved gave us the probability that we needed to get the
search warrant," California Det. Ronald Carr said early on in the case.
The search warrant unearthed more than 100 images of young children engaged in
sex acts. Mr. Kline's journal entries from 2000 and 2001 detailed the judge's
sexual urges and the times and places where he met young boys.
The judge, a Little League umpire at the time, had contact with several boys at
ball games, in a mall and at a private health club, where he befriended
vulnerable boys with the hopes of exploiting them.
"You can't just charge in like you did with (a boy)," said one entry dated June
6, 2000. "How do I encourage him without pursuing him too hard?"
The next day, the judge wrote to himself: "I gave a lot of thought today about
this business of approaching these kids too fast ... He doesn't strike me as a
lonely boy... You have to make them come to you or it just doesn't work."
Mr. Willman's central role in the Kline case has kept legal experts debating
his actions ever since. In 2005, University of British Columbia business
professor Hasan Cavusoglu told Maclean's that the Langley youth's hacking to
expose suspected pedophiles could invite "other prosecutors to attempt to use
evidence obtained by illegal means in other trials."
But the University of Toronto's Richard Owens, executive director of the Centre
for Innovation Law and Policy, said at the time: "We may need to set certain
limits, but for the moment it's unrestricted and the risks, in this case, are
balanced by the benefits of prosecuting a potential child predator."
Today, Mr. Willman says he lives with his parents and works independently
repairing and maintaining computers; his hacking prowess proved no ticket to
high-tech riches.
"I don't have any big, fancy job."
