D&P Highlight: Is messaging on a site like THAT (allegedly) a crime?

0:00You're listening to the Dana N. Park's podcast on K M B Z. So if you listen to the show with any regularity, I'm a huge Wheel of Fortune fan. Their announcer Jim Forton was fired last week after he was spotted on a plane on Sam. Can you describe the chat form that he was in? Yeah, so this is, it goes way back to these chat pages have been around since the dawn of the internet. There's no like fancy formatting or anything that's literally just username, colon, whatever they said. This particular chat forum happened to be one for people who were, I'm going to use the term suffering from pedophilic thoughts and wanted some support allegedly. In getting over those thoughts, however, the messages that were displayed on the screen and screenshots or the pictures that we got from the other passenger, they were joking about the thoughts that they had and, you know, couldn't believe that we're doing this type of chat room on

1:02a plane. And I can't, I was thinking about I'm not even going to go in with them. So Jim Thorne, who's the guy that says, and please welcome the stars of our show, blah, blah, he was on Fridays and last night's show. Wow. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They've scrubbed him from his Alma Mater's website because apparently two years ago he gave or last year he gave the commencement address and was also like the grand marshal of some parade. I, you know, we talk about things you're not going to come back from. You know, Sony has fired him. As they should. I don't know where someone goes from there. I mentioned this on Friday. Does somebody get a warrant to look at his home phone and computers and all of that stuff? We'll be because I don't believe you accidentally stumble on a website like that for 57 minutes. And then Google, did you read this? Once the flight attendant came over and said, we're going to need you to close your laptop. He then Googled on his cell phone and the witness

2:10has a screen shot of that. He essentially Googled, can I be tracked on an airplane looking up content? How would somebody know who I was? Was, was what he Googled after the flight attendant said, oh, we're going to need you to close your laptop. How do they know that he did the lady who had photographed him earlier and take a photo of that as well? Yes, because I think Scott, she was seated not. So he's in the aisle on the right hand side of the plane. He's in the aisle. She's in the aisle on the left hand side of the plane. She's behind him. And just behind him one rose, you've been on a plane. You can see if someone's watching a movie. I have watched an entire movie without audio before because the person across from me and one row up in the aisle is watching a movie. You, you like, which also says to me, A, he's an idiot or so narcissistic. He just didn't think he would be caught while wearing a wheel of fortune jacket. No, he joked about not being caught in one of the, yeah, threads that you could say,

3:11one of the messages. And you cleaned it up and read that line. It was to the tune of, I can't believe we're doing, I'm doing this on a plane in 30,000 feet up or something like that. And somebody else responded and was like, well, are you going to get caught? And he was like, no, they don't know what's going on. It's just a bunch of random text on a screen. Well, people can read, bro, allegedly. Um, do you think that the story would be different today, if it were actually like maybe he'd was suffering from pedophilic thoughts. Maybe he was seeking assistance on some chat room for him. Well, you don't do that when you're on a plane. It's obvious that this particular chat room was not to seek assistance. No, they just wanted to share their nasty thoughts illegal. Do you think if it were actually like, I have pedophilic thoughts.com, please help, please help me. It would be a different story to know. No, no, I don't. I don't. I don't. Again, he was wearing a wheel of fortune jacket. And he is representing the show.

4:13He's a recognizable person. He's wearing the jacket. Wheel of fortune and Sony are going to say you were representing the show in public. And because of that, you have to go. Number of people are saying last night was a rerun. Well, they're all technically rerun. You would still think they would have scrubbed it. These are all recorded well in advance. But even if it was not a rerun, Friday, I think was a new episode and it was or he was not scrubbed out of it. Last thing I will say is if you have not seen the photo, the wheel of fortune logo is on the bicep area of the jacket. I keep bringing up the jacket because you would have to be so narcissistic. Want to be recognized that you're wearing that. But then at the same time, you are going to one of the most vile illegal vulgar content websites we can imagine would prefer not to, right?

5:13While wearing your boss's merchandise, he's never coming back from this. He doesn't need to. He makes somewhere between a half a million and a million dollars a year. He's up there in age. He doesn't need the job. Sell your LA home and move to the Midwest and live another country. We don't need you here. But I'm captivated by this idea that you have Dana. And I'm not being critical of it that he needs to have his laptop confiscated and looked through. I don't know what he did on that plane while on ethical, in moral, long, I'm not sure that he broke law. And I can't believe I'm defending it. Let me ask you this. We know that just viewing those images is illegal. Just viewing them is illegal, right? And so if that was a website where there were

6:20words being typed, so the words you might be able to say not illegal. But was it not also a website where there were files or photos being shown? I believe that if you, you know, not right there on the screen, but I'm not going to the website to find out. No, I'm not either. But at that point, Scott, just being on that website, are you not committing a crime? So yes, if there are files actually being shared by others, yes, and you're not going to lose it. And you're not going, oh my god, I need to get off this website for 57 minutes because it's a mistake. That would be receiving child porn. I don't understand why that is not probable cause enough to look through his stuff. And I would suggest to you that it is not, I think it would be extremely likely they would find something there. I don't think you accidentally end up on a website like that. And I, it's disgusting. And I don't want us to say about it. You know what? I still feel the need to say alleged in this story. Yeah, I don't know why. Can we also discuss the lawyer's response?

7:26He probably actually had suicide in his family. He probably actually supports people going to suicide hotlines, chat rooms, whatever. The lawyer saying he has suicide in his family and he was trying to go to the 988 Lifeline website and accidentally ended up on this site is abhorrent. Yeah, because it's not believable. Why would you say that? They're for 50 some odd minutes. What are we doing? You are reaching for straws trying to find, she was trying to put out a fire. Yeah, trying to find anything and everything that might might. And she even mind the first day, it was, oh, this is a mix up. It was the next day that the passenger said, okay, you want to play that game? Here's the timestamps. He was, he was there 57 minutes. Tell me again about your accidental. I'm supposed to be on a suicide helpline. But how did this stay under wraps for what? Six months, six months. Yeah, it was early March. Scott, I don't know. I mean, how did this just get out unless, and I said this on on Friday,

8:30she was shopping these images around to the National Enquirer, you know, Globe magazine, whatever. And nobody was biting because Jim Thornton's just the voice guy on Wheel of Fortune. Hmm, I think, Scott, I don't know. I'd be hard pressed to believe that the wheel nor Sony didn't know about this or to use double negatives. I think they knew about it in March. Somebody says, who has jurisdiction in the air, the federal government? It was the FBI that did the FBI question him or look into it or was it local authorities that met him after the planet? It was local authorities. Local police. Yeah. All right. 913-586-779-858-677-98 here on Dana and Parks. Thanks for listening to the Dana and Parks podcast. Remember, you can catch us online anytime. at KMBC.com