Anti-Porner Donny Pauling Arrested for Sex With Minor

SUTTER COUNTY, Calif.—When a Usual Suspects group of anti-porn activists attended the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation 2014 Summit in May, pushing a strategy that defines pornography as a "public health crisis," they likely never expected that one of their own would himself become an alleged danger to the public, incarcerated on charges related to lewd acts with a child. But that is precisely what happened to former pornographer-turned-outspoken-anti-porner Donny Pauling, who was arrested yesterday by the Sutter County Sheriff on a Ramey warrant. Pauling is charged with three felonies: Lewd Act on a Child, Oral Copulation and Unlawful Intercourse. Each of the allegations pertain to sex with a minor, but the fact that Pauling was arrested under a Ramey warrant may be significant in the resolution of this case. According to California Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog, a Ramey warrant "is obtained by a police agency by going directly to a judge and bypassing the district attorney." William Weinberg adds for the site, "So why would a police agency choose to get a Ramey Warrant instead of just the traditional arrest warrant? Well for one reason, it is faster. The police agency may not want to wait for the District Attorney’s Office to review the paperwork, which they have submitted. So, they bypass this and go straight to the source. However, most commonly, this is done when a police officer feels that he may not have enough evidence for the district attorney to actually file the charges. He doesn’t want to take the chance that the district attorney will reject the case. So, if he can get a judge to issue a Ramey Warrant, he can then arrest the person and question them with the hope of obtaining enough information and sufficient evidence to present it to the District Attorney for filing. Basically, the officer’s hope is that, once they have the individual in their possession, they will get what they need to make their case and end up with the sufficient evidence needed to get the case filed." Another possibility, of course, is that the potential defendant is so well-connected, so well-known or in some other way so high-profile (via his connection to influential rightwing pro-censorship groups) that police may suspect that the District Attorney may decline to further investigate the charges or decline to bring charges even when police have obtained what to others might seem to be compelling evidence. There is no indication what brought the police to seek charges against Pauling in the first place, or what evidence they presented to the judge, so stay tuned. In the meantime, we'll look for comment from the likes of Morality in Media and the Family Research Council, which will hopefully support their colleague as he struggles with his alleged inability to keep his hands off of minors.