Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP James Ciampa, wearing headphones to assist him in hearing the proceedings in his child porn-possession trial that got underway Wednesday, goes over notes with his attorney, Roger Chadwick.

NASHUA – James Ciampa was “very cooperative,” and even “showed us where things were,” a Nashua police detective testified Wednesday, referring to the day three years ago when he and other detectives knocked on Ciampa’s door with a search warrant.

The “things” Detective Matt Allen was speaking about were video cassettes, a “high-8” (older camcorder-type) camera and a computer. Ciampa allegedly stored a trove of images depicting children engaging in various sexual acts, both with other children and with adults, on these devices.

Ciampa, now 69 and dealing with various health issues, according to his attorney, Roger “Rusty” Chadwick, is on trial this week on 10 counts of possession of child sexual abuse images. The charges stem from an investigation police launched after Ciampa’s two sons discovered some of the images and went to police.

The jury hearing Ciampa’s case, which was seated last week, is comprised of 11 men and three women, including the two alternates.

Testimony is scheduled to resume at 10 a.m. today in Judge Jacalyn Colburn’s courtroom at Hillsborough County Superior Court-South.

The court docket has allocated three days for the trial.

Ciampa, employed for many years building mainframe computers until, Chadwick said, he was downsized nearly 10 years ago, began filling his idle hours surfing the internet.

Although he can’t sit for long without getting up and moving around, Chadwick said, Ciampa found his computer chair “good and comfortable,” allowing him to sit for longer periods of time.

“He would go online, looking at things,” Chadwick said, suggesting it is quite common for people surfing the internet “to start looking at one thing and end up somewhere else.”

“That’s the beginning … he starts looking at (adult) porn, and eventually it leads down the road to these horrible images,” he added, referring to child porn.

As time went on, Ciampa spent a lot of time “looking at a lot of things on the computer, to pass the time,” Chadwick said, noting that there were many things Ciampa viewed that had nothing to do with pornography.

Chadwick, in his opening statement, was straightforward with jurors from the outset.

“This not going to be a pleasant day for you,” he told them. “You are going to have to look at things you never want to look at. But I have to ask you to look at those images … because later on, I’m going to argue whether or not they qualify for the definition” of child sexual abuse images.

First Assistant County Attorney Kent Smith, who is prosecuting the case with Assistant County Attorney Lin Li, said in his opening statement that David Ciampa began to notice “his father spent a lot of time on the internet,” and often kept the camera he called a “high-8” on a table next to him.

One day David Ciampa “saw the camera, picked it up and put in a cassette,” Smith told the jury. “What he saw on the (viewer) was pornography, but it wasn’t the kind of pornography we’re familiar with. It was little kids, involved in sexual activity,” Smith said.

David Ciampa told his brother, Richard, about what he saw, and they agreed to confront their father. A short time later, they went to police, who took their statements. After a preliminary investigation, police sought, and were granted, a warrant to search Ciampa’s residence, where, Smith said, they “found all sorts of child pornography.”

Jurors, according to Smith, must decide if the images are child pornography, and also have to determine that Ciampa possessed the images – and whether he knew they were child pornography images.

“You only get one chance to be a kid, and Mr. Ciampa stole that from these children,” Smith said.

Chadwick, meanwhile, called the case “not so much a ‘who-done-it;’ it’s really about a ‘why,'” he said.

He said his client told police he was taking medications for his various health issues, and that he spent “day after day looking at the computer.” Perhaps due to the medications, Ciampa also felt, according to Chadwick, that “I’m not in my right mind.”

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com, or @Telegraph_DeanS.

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