California State Prosecutor Charged With Possession Of Child Porn

CORONADO, CA – A California deputy attorney general has been charged in U.S. District Court in San Diego with possessing child pornography at his Coronado home. Raymond Joseph Liddy, a 53-year-old former reserve Marine colonel and the son of Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy, pleaded not guilty to the charge after he was arrested Tuesday.

Liddy was released in lieu of $100,000 bond during an arraignment Tuesday and placed on house arrest with GPS monitoring.

The California attorney general’s office said in a statement Wednesday that it was aware of the charges against Liddy and that he was placed on administrative leave.

An investigation was launched after an electronic service provider sent a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in January that a user had uploaded an image that appeared to be child porn, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, which cited a criminal complaint filed in federal court. Another provider sent a similar tip a month later, with the second report showing 10 images of child porn uploaded in a messaging program.

After the tips were forwarded to the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children task force, investigators tracked the activity to Liddy's home in Coronado.

Investigators served a search warrant at Liddy's home Tuesday and discovered a computer and thumbdrive containing images showing children engaged in sexual acts, according to the Union-Tribune. One image showed a naked prepubescent girl blindfolded with her hands bound together.

In an interview with FBI agents, Liddy admitted using internet services and screen names associated with the service providers who passed along the tips, the Union-Tribune reported. Liddy also told investigators he used the screen name and other fake online personas to share sexual fantasies online, saying he often downloaded sexual images but quickly deleted them, the newspaper reported. He told the agents most of the images were of adults, but it was possible some may have been of children.

Knut Johnson, Liddy's attorney, told CBS8 that "just the mere fact of charges like this are a tragedy for everyone involved."

"This is the very beginning of the case and then we will get to the end and figure out what it is all about," Johnson told the station.

According to his LinkedIn page, which features a photograph of him wearing the dress blues of the Marine Corps, Liddy earned his bachelor's degree from New York's Fordham University, a law degree from the same university's school of law and a master's degree from the United State Army War College in Pennsylvania.

Liddy is the son of G. Gordon Liddy, a lawyer and FBI agent who was convicted of burglary, conspiracy and other charges in the Watergate scandal. The elder Liddy – the chief operative in President Richard Nixon's White House Plumbers unit that organized and directed the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building – served more than four years in federal prison for those crimes, which also included refusing to testify to the Senate committee investigating the Watergate scandal.

Liddy is due back in court for a hearing in the case Aug. 8, CBS8 reported.

City News Service contributed to this report.

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