United States v. Jason Azzara

Jason Azzara appeals his conviction and sentence after a conditional guilty plea to one count of possessing child pornography. He challenges the district court’s denial of his motions to suppress (1) statements he made to ICE agents during an in-home interview, and (2) evidence of child pornography found on his computer during the execution of a search warrant after a previous warrantless search of his computer indicated the potential presence of the child pornography. He also contends the district court abused its discretion by imposing special conditions of supervised release.

We find no error in the denial of the motion to suppress the statements, and no error in the imposition of the special conditions. With respect to the evidence found on the computer itself, we agree with the district court that the seizure of the computer was not consensual. The district court found there was probable cause, independent of the contents of the computer as revealed by the warrantless search, to support admission of the evidence found on the computer. The court made no further finding with respect to whether the agents would have obtained a warrant without the original illegal search. We…