Photographer convicted of making child porn

Using software to place girls' faces onto the naked bodies of adult women creates pictures that are indeed child pornography, even though the girls had been photographed in innocent ways, a judge ruled Friday. The decision by Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge John Lewis came as Lewis convicted Marshall Zidel, the former photographer at a children's camp on Baboosic Lake, on nine counts of creating such "morphed" pictures, using faces of 14- and 15-year-old girls. Zidel, 59, a commercial photographer from Somerville, Mass., faces 3½ to 7 years in prison and $4,000 in fines on each count. He remains free on $50,000 bond and will be sentenced at a later hearing. [...]

"The Legislature . . . has decided that the way to protect children is not to allow the possession" of such pictures, Lewis said, adding that Zidel's own thinking was secondary: "How he justifies this in his own mind, is up to him."

source: Article 'Photographer convicted of making child porn' by David Brooks; www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060422/NEWS01/104220125/-1/YOUTH; Telegraph Staff; 22 April 2006