| Powell Lies About Cookies |
| In judge's chambers, the followinge exchange took place: Thompson: I understand what you're saying. How do you tend to show or what is it about this evidence (the temporary Internet files) that tends to show opportunity for someone else? Can you articulate that? Powell: Judge, I can articulate that on the first four disks, those disks show that on March the 11th and March the 12th in the morning hours of 1999 that someone accessed these sites. It shows minute by minute when they were looked at all the way through. It shows up on these. Thompson: These aren't just pop-ups? Powell: There is some pop-ups in there, yes, but these are things that you have to access. It's not the kind of thing that you could be sitting there researching the Sunday school lesson and bam this just falls in there. It is not that. That's indicated on the defendant's exhibit Number 40 (floppy disc) or whatever that it was more than that. It was on those particular hard copies that we got it shows like david@swapmate or aphrodite and all those things (cookies). Those are sites that we have to access. Those sites are such that they are--let me see how to put it, Judge. THEY ARE PLACES WHERE YOU CAN GO AND YOU LEAVE MESSAGES ON THERE ABOUT YOU AND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR AND WHAT YOU WANT OR WHAT YOU DO, AND THEY ARE ACCESSED ONLY FOR THAT PURPOSE. THERE ARE SITES TO GO IN THERE AND SWAP INFORMATION WITH OTHER PEOPLE ABOUT THESE SUBJECTS. (later) Thompson: Are you going to have an expert that comes in and testifies, a computer expert, that knows more about it than you obviously do if you don't know what an instant message is that she had accessed these sites, these weren't pop-up messages? Powell: Yes, we have someone that will testify to that. Well, sure enough, they found a "computer expert" to testify--Jeff Howard, Sherman Powell's SON-IN-LAW. When Halbrooks asked him what these very files (david@flycast, etc.) were, he said they were COOKIES. So Catherine Halbrooks asks him what a cookie is, and he replied: Jeff Howard: A cookie is another type of internet file that you get downloaded to your computer's hardrd drive while you're browsing web pages UNBEKNOWNST TO THE USER. It is a--when you print it out it looks like code. It's just text file (wrong!) but that file it is used to provide information about the user of this internet and his browsing so to speak. It is a way that people who design these web pages find out things about the user's browsing habits, stores things like log-in names and registration names. It can be used to track your browsing experience so they can use ads to target you. It's used for several different things, and IT GOES ON IN THE BACKGROUND. It's information transferred between the servers of the sites that provide the web pages down to your personal computer. Halbrooks: When you said that it shows david@sexswap.com, david@sexhound.com, did any of that information related to that show up on these floppies? Jeff Howard: NO. I would like to point out: THIS IS THEIR OWN WITNESS, SHERMAN POWELL'S SON-IN-LAW, and he just totally contradicted what Powell claimed to the judge, in order to get this trash admitted into evidence (and into the press) in the first place, purely for the purpose of attacking the victim. Thompson still put his stamp of approval on it. |