Justin Time

This New York Magazine piece, about Kurt Eichenwald's obsessive involvement in his sensational "Justin" child-porn investigative story, is absolutely a must-read. Without playing devil's advocate too eagerly, it raises questions about Eichenwald's motives when he risked his life and career to "save" a teenager from an Internet pornography business of his own making, and probably raises questions about the motives of most zealots, whether or not their intentions seem to be pure. Even if they are pure, could it be that investing so much energy in battling something impure eventually rubs off, whether to invite you into the world you're railing against or to destroy the harmony of your own world? I finished the article and could not help but think: This wasn't worth any of the effort. Everyone paid except for the person who launched the illicit, indefensible Justin's Friends Web site: Justin.

Comments

[James]

It is clear that Kurt Eichenwald is living in a state of denial and has begun to believe the spin that he put on the original story. Eichenwald still thinks that he should get brownie points for getting Justin Berry out of the porn business which is weird when all of the evidence indicates that it was Eichenwald who put him back in in the first place.

From the very beginning (January, 2006) people questioned Eichenwald’s story about Berry because of the fact that Berry did not go back into the porn business until June 19, 2005, less than two weeks before Eichenwald “rescued” him.

When you throw in the payments to Berry, the verifiable evidence is damning:

1. Early June, 2005: Eichenwald begins making contact with Berry. At this time and Berry has been out of the internet porn business for over six months.(Source: Justin Berry’s prepared Congressional Committee Testimony). [From David France’s article it appears that at this time Berry was living with Greg Mitchel as his “boy toy”, yucky, but not illegal since Berry was 18.]

2. June 6 – 7 2005: Eichenwald sends Berry $314 through PayPal using the name fake name “Andrew McDonald”. (Source: subpoenaed PayPal records made public by court order. Although Kurt Eichenwald admits to making these payments he claims to have no independent recollection of the circumstances under which they were made. However the notes attached to the payments clearly show that Eichenwald was either buying graphic images of Justin Berry or pretending to buy graphic images of Justin Berry. In addition, in the note attached to the payment made at 7:34 a.m. on June 7, 2005, Eichenwald tells Berry, “I have other proposals for you that will get you even more money.” What were these proposals? Eichenwald can’t remember!)

June 8, 2005: Eichenwald sends Berry a cashiers check for $2000. (Eichenwald has admitted this on many occasions)

June 19, 2005: Justin Berry reactivates his dormant website justinsfriends.com.(Source: Court testimony of US Department of Justice Assistant to the Chief for Computer Forensics, James Fottrell in the case of U.S. v. Richards.)

It is impossible to believe that it is mere coincidence that Justin Berry went back online a few days after receiving significant payments from Kurt Eichenwald, particularly since Eichenwald has made every effort to obscure the sequence of events. An honest examination of Eichenwald’s original story shows that he deliberately obscured the sequence of events in order to make it appear that Berry was still in the internet porn business at the time Eichenwald discovered him. In fact, in every appearance Eichenwald continues to imply that this is the case, although he knows it to be untrue. If you listen closely you will see that he did so in his “explanation” of why he “rescued” Berry on this very show.

To this day Eichenwald has refused to explain why Justin Berry went back into the porn business immediately after receiving Eichenwald’s money. And no one in the media seems to have the guts to ask him directly to his face.

[Chuck]

why was he so fascinated by the whole thing? It was really none of his business. Impersonating someone else is kinda the opposite of integrity; "I was justin." Umm, no actually you weren't.

Only he knows if he was getting off on all this or not.

[Matthew Rettenmund]

James: Very well put; one reasonable conclusion is that Eichenwald may have staged his rescue. Chuck, another reasonable conclusion is that Eichenwald may have been a patron of or at the very least somewhat titillated by what he was saying he was out to destroy. I think it's hard to know for sure, but it's for sure that he was not adhering to journalistic ethics and also that Justin is not a character worthy of too much excess pity.

[Chuck]

agreed, Matthew. It's just that the busy-body do-gooder is a slippery slope. Who was he to say what Justin was doing was "wrong" since Justin was an adult when they first came into contact?

Eichenwald initially misrepresented himself at best to Justin, and at worst was a paying customer watching Justin do his thing. Then he went on to misrepresent himself as Justin to Justin's friends. Who was he to take this upon himself?

I'm sorry, but I get upset when one person bends the law and bends ethics because he thinks he knows better about something and therefore robs the person he is "saving" of his own free will or his reputation to others. The whole detox scenario where he wasn't allowed to use his computer or call anyone was scary. Who draws the line as to what is "saving" and what is denying someone the right to live their own life any way they choose? The next step would be to "save" a gay kid by doing the same thing. Not a good precedent.

Eichenwald should have spent his time paying attention to his own kids if his motive was truly, "what if this was them." Because all he did was make their lives worse by budding into someone else's life dishonestly and using it as fodder for his newspaper career.