Navy captain accused of viewing child porn at work

NORFOLK

Investigators say they found close to 300 images of pornography and bestiality on Capt. Richard Frey's work computer at Norfolk Naval Station, including dozens that were possibly child porn.

But proving that the officer with almost three decades in uniform actually committed the crimes he has been charged with might be more difficult than it seems - particularly the most serious charge of child pornography, his lawyer told the investigating officer at a pretrial hearing on Wednesday.

"This is going to be a battle of the experts," defense attorney Steven Folsom, a retired Marine Corps lawyer, told the court. "This case is riddled with reasonable doubt with regard to child porn charges."

Frey has been charged with viewing and possessing pornography, child pornography and images depicting bestiality at his work computer on base. He's also charged with viewing pornography aboard the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge.

Frey, 48, whose career included a stint as skipper of the Ponce and most recently the title of senior operations officer in charge of training exercises at Carrier Strike Group Four, faces two charges with a total of five specifications - three related to misuse of government resources and two related to child pornography.

Government witness Capt. Steven Yoder testified that he investigated Frey but couldn't ascertain whether any of the images involved children. So he turned the case over to Naval Criminal Investigative Services.

NCIS investigator Eric Trest told the court that Frey "admitted he'd misused his government computer" and that he'd been warned previously - ostensibly while on the Kearsarge.

He said Frey admitted that he "had an interest in young men and women," though he later clarified that they were over 18 and that he had "a sexual addiction problem" for which he'd undergone treatment.

"He said that was the reason for the dissolution of his marriage," Trest said, adding that an NCIS digital forensic investigator took 75 images of adult bestiality off Frey's computer, along with more than 100 images depicting adult bondage - "what I consider fairly extreme" - and more than 100 images of suspected child porn.

But Trest said none of the suspected child porn images matched a national database, and there was no way to verify that any of those images were of children.

Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Robertson, the prosecutor, urged the investigating officer, Capt. Michael Palmer, to consider the websites and search terms entered into Frey's computer, noting that someone of his age and experience would reasonably have had to know where those searches were taking him.

"This was not a mistake," he said. HamptonRoads