Sonoma County D.A. wants Karr to face child porn charges from '01

Sonoma County authorities will seek to have John Mark Karr extradited to California to face child pornography charges on hold since he failed to appear for a court hearing five years ago.

District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua said the decision was made Monday after Colorado authorities dropped their case against Karr in the JonBenet Ramsey killing.

Karr, a one-time substitute teacher in Petaluma area schools, is wanted on a no-bail warrant issued by a Sonoma County judge after he failed to appear at a December 2001 court hearing in a misdemeanor child pornography case.

Sheriff's detectives said they found five photos of children in sexual situations on a computer seized from Karr's Petaluma residence in April 2001.

If convicted, Karr, 41, may not face any more jail time than he served in 2001, but he would be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

That led to the unusual, and potentially expensive, move to extradite a defendant charged with a misdemeanor, Passalacqua said.

"This is an unusual case, which warrants unusual actions," he said .

"The main purpose for extraditing Mr. Karr is the fact that any defendant convicted of these types of charges will have to register as a sex offender," Passalacqua said. "That is a very significant consequence. We take child pornography very serious and expect that to happen in this case."

Karr spent about six months in jail fighting the charges after his April 2001 arrest. Held on $100,000 bail, an unusually high figure for a misdemeanor case, he sought to have evidence dismissed and bail reduced for months.

After six months in custody, a judge freed Karr on supervised release, conditioned on him staying away from children and computers and checking in with his probation officer. At some point, he violated those terms, court records show, and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

He failed to appear for the December 2001 court hearing and the case was shelved pending the warrant.

Some court records from the case were sealed after Karr's arrest in Thailand. A motion by The Press Democrat and other news organizations to reopen the records was scheduled for Monday but postponed until today.

Karr's arrest in 2001 in Sonoma County followed a sheriff's investigation into his apparent obsession with young female sexual-assault and murder victims.

In taped and e-mail conversations with a sheriff's informant in early 2001, Karr related having what he called a "psychic connection" with Ramsey and Petaluma kidnap-murder victim Polly Klaas.

At the time, detectives were primarily interested in Karr in connection with the unsolved 1997 murder of Georgia Moses, 12, whose body was found dumped along the southbound H ighway 101 entrance ramp at Petaluma Boulevard . No one has been arrested in her killing.

Karr turned out not to be a "viable suspect" in Moses' death, sheriff's official said. They said they alerted Boulder, Colo., authorities to Karr's unusual fascination with the Ramsey case.

Passalacqua said it probably will be the first or second week of September before Karr appears in a Sonoma County court. Other lawyers said it could take longer.

Boulder authorities set an extradition hearing for today. If he waives extradition, Sonoma County sheriff's investigators would travel to Colorado to bring Karr to the c ounty.

If Karr fights extradition, the governor's office would issue a warrant to Colorado authorities seeking his transfer. A judge then would determine if Karr should be extradited.

The process could take a month, Sonoma County Public Defender John Abrahams said.

Once back in Sonoma County, Karr would appear before a judge, a defense attorney probably would be appointed at public expense. A public defender represented Karr in his 2001 case.

Court dates to clear the warrant and hear the pornography case would be set at that time.

"As soon as he gets here, one of our attorneys will be up to talk to him," Abrahams said. "At this point, he has two options: go to trial on the charges or plead guilty. It's totally up to him, as it is with any person charged with a crime."

County Sheriff Bill Cogbill said he supports bringing Karr back to stand trial on the misdemeanor charges.

"These kinds of cases are very serious - frankly, I think they should be a felony - and we owe it to ourselves and our kids to see that justice is carried out in this case," he said. "I'm not saying he's guilty, but we do have a very strong case."