A Santa Barbara Superior Court judge blocked the Santa Barbara News-Press’ parent company from reclaiming a hard drive containing at least 15,000 images of child pornography yesterday, citing an ongoing FBI investigation and the owners’ questionable motives.

Judge James Brown denied Ampersand Publishing’s motion to obtain the hard drive – taken from a commonly used newsroom computer – citing the FBI investigation, as well as his judgment on an exemption to the Public Records Act; Brown ruled that the city of Santa Barbara was not required to turn over the contraband.

The News-Press announced in an article published Sunday, April 22 that it would attempt to retrieve the hard drive from city police who took the contraband when the newspaper discovered, after sending it to a data retrieval service, that it contained images of adult and child pornography.

The article – “News-Press Seeks Exam of Computer Used by Ex-Editor Roberts Containing Child Porn” – has been decried by scores of Santa Barbarans, media industry insiders and even a few libel lawyers as a smear piece against former News-Press Executive Editor Jerry Roberts, who at one point – like any number of newsroom employees – had used the computer.

Roberts, the current Daily Nexus Publications Director, is being sued by Ampersand for $25 million for breach of contract. Roberts resigned from the News-Press last July. Since he left, at least 40 other newsroom employees have quit or been fired, many complaining of upper management’s alleged inappropriate meddling in the newsroom.

Judge Brown noted the $25 million lawsuit in his reasoning – since Ampersand claimed that it intended to use incriminating evidence on the hard drive against Roberts in the ongoing case, Brown ruled that custody of the hard drive should be determined in arbitration between the two parties.

Barry Capello, attorney for Ampersand Publishing, argued against Judge Brown’s ruling and said Ampersand had intended to conduct its own investigation into the hard drive. The goal of the investigation would be to determine who actually downloaded the 750,000 images found on the computer – at least 15,000 of which were found to contain pornography, according to the Santa Barbara Police Dept. – and to find out if the perpetrator was still working for the News-Press.

“Somebody that could’ve worked for Roberts, or our company, has downloaded 750,000 images, 15,000 of which were child pornography,” Capello said. “Somebody in our company has done that – maybe a former employee, maybe a current employee.”

During the hearing, Capello announced that the News-Press management no longer believes the computer was purchased used – which was widely reported after the April 22 article ran. The computer’s dubious history was one of the reasons investigators said they could not pin a perpetrator.

“This hard drive was absolutely clean when [a computer store] sold it to us, and it wasn’t a used computer,” Capello said. “The computer … was clean so that this material was downloaded at the News-Press, while the News-Press owned the computer.”

Steve Wiley, the attorney for the city of Santa Barbara in the case, argued against ever relinquishing custody of the hard drive and said that giving the hard drive back to Ampersand – or anyone – could hinder future prosecution and defense cases involving the child pornography, by “messing” with the chain of custody.

He also questioned the paper’s motives in bringing the motion up in court, accusing the newspaper of filing the claim in order to write the front-page April 22 article linking Roberts to the child pornography.

“We have a real concern that this may not be about hearing this motion … [that this motion is actually about] the ability to tarnish someone’s reputation before the prosecutorial authorities have weighed in,” Wiley said.

Brown, however, granted Capello’s request to bar destruction of the evidence for at least 120 days, to allow both parties of the arbitration time to decide the hard drive’s fate.