Child porn case against Great Falls man dismissed

The state has dismissed the case against a Great Falls man accused of possessing child pornography. Robert Charles Bidlo, 76, faced seven counts of sexual abuse of children.

According to charging documents filed in March, Bidlo’s former neighbor filed a complaint with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2012, claiming Bidlo attempted to “groom” her young daughter. The document says the complainant said Bidlo would try to get the child alone, and that he possessed at least one pornographic image of children on his computer.

The report said Bidlo told the neighbor the image was “research.”

A pre-trial motions hearing scheduled for Wednesday morning before District Judge John Kutzman was vacated, after the state filed a motion Monday to dismiss the case without prejudice. According to court records, Monday was the deadline for the state to submit responses to several motions filed by the defense.

“After reviewing the defense’s motions as well as the applicable case law and statutes, the state cannot meet its burden of proof in this matter,” Deputy County Attorney Kory Larsen wrote in the motion for dismissal.

The motions filed by Bidlo’s attorney, Steven Scott of the Montana Public Defender’s Office, included a motion to dismiss with prejudice for negligent destruction of evidence, a motion to suppress the search warrant issued in the case and at least two motions for discovery sanctions to be made against the state.

Scott argued in the briefs to the court supporting his motions that the search warrant executed in August 2012 lacked probable cause. He also wrote the the case stalled for more than two years after the warrant was executed and two computers were seized from Bidlo’s home “for reasons known only to the state.”

A Great Falls police detective working with the Internet Crimes Against Children task force obtained the warrant to seize Bidlo’s two laptops and turned them over to a Department of Homeland Security Agent for forensic analysis, according to the charging document.

The document details what the agent found, including many incriminating saved Internet search terms and 116 images in Web browser cache files known by law enforcement agencies to be child pornography.

A defense brief filed in early August further states a compact disc containing images that corresponded to the Homeland Security Agent’s report detailing the forensic search results of Bidlo’s computers was not provided to the defense as requested. The document says the defense assumed the disc was negligently destroyed before it could be turned over to Scott.

The brief says a defense expert needed access to the images on the disc to check his work and investigate Bidlo’s claim that others had access to the computers.

Minutes from the Aug. 18 status hearing on the case indicate a prosecutor gave the defense a disc during the hearing, though the minutes did not specify if it was the disc referred to in the defense’s motion.

A call to the Cascade County Attorney’s Office requesting clarification about the disc and general comment about case was not immediately returned.

Bidlo was free on $50,000 bail at the time the case was dismissed.