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A University of Utah professor accused in a child pornography probe remained in a Massachusetts jail Wednesday, his bid to have his $75,000 bail lowered rebuffed in court.
Grant D. Smith, 47, remained incarcerated at Boston's Nashua Street Jail after a closed-circuit video hearing Wednesday noon (EST) in Suffolk Superior Court failed to have his cash-only bail reduced, said Suffolk County District Attorney's Office spokesman Jake Wark.
Judge Carol Ball, after hearing defense attorney Patrick Murphy's plea for easing the terms of Smith's bail, sided with prosecutor David Deakin's argument for leaving bail amount and terms in place.
"Based on the facts of the case, additional charges are probable and in fact quite likely," Deakin told the court, adding that Smith allegedly acknowledged he had traded child porn images online. The prosecutor also said that Smith had traveled to Korea and Malaysia within the past year and the high bail was justified to ensure he didn't dodge future court proceedings.
"He has no ties to the Commonwealth [of Massachusetts]," Deakin stated, adding that Smith's "ties to Utah appear to be weakening by the day [and] it appears he has as many ties to Korea and Malaysia as he does [to] Massachusetts."
Smith, who was arraigned Monday in East Boston District Court, remains scheduled to appear in court for a pre-trial hearing on Dec. 27. He is accused of viewing child pornography on a Utah-to-Boston flight.
While Massachusetts prosecutors continue to prepare their case against Smith — a Materials Science and Engineering Department professor at the University of Utah — the Utah Attorney General's Office and the state's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force also were gathering evidence. On Monday, ICAC officers broke down the door of Smith's Cottonwood Heights condominium and seized numerous, unspecified items; the professor's Salt Lake City campus office also was searched and secured.
Ken Wallentine, spokesman for the Utah Attorney General's investigative division, said the search warrant used for the raids had been sealed pending completion of the investigation. However, he did acknowledge a "substantial amount of property" had been seized.
Typically in such cases, investigators look for computers, hard drives and other storage media that may contain illicit images.
Massachusetts prosecutors allege Smith was viewing child porn on his laptop Saturday while sitting in the first-class section of his Delta flight. A passenger behind him saw the images and notified the flight's staff and told his son via email. The son then called authorities and Smith was met by Massachusetts state troopers when his flight landed about 4:30 p.m. Saturday in Boston.
Prosecutors say after Smith granted written permission, an inspection of Smith's laptop yielded numerous images of nude girls between 5 and 14 years of age, some of them allegedly engaged in sex acts with adult males.