Prosecutors say Charles Rust-Tierney, a former president of the Virginia ACLU, was leading a "double life,'' coaching Little League baseball by day and using a computer in his 10-year-old son's bedroom to view child pornography at night.
Yet more than two dozen people -- including numerous fellow lawyers and his former wife -- packed a courtroom in U.S. District Court in Alexandria last week to testify that Rust-Tierney should be released from jail. And yesterday, his attorneys filed letters of support with the court from more than 30 people, including parents of children Rust-Tierney has coached.
"Chuck is the kindest, most gentle human being you could imagine,'' one supporter, Alexandria lawyer Phil Hirschkop, said in an interview. "I have no problem with him being with my children or grandchildren, whatever he's charged with.''
U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa C. Buchanan was not swayed, saying the images found on Rust-Tierney's computer were "the most perverted and nauseating and sickening type of child pornography" she has seen in 10 years on the bench. Defense attorneys Peter D. Greenspun and Jonathan Shapiro appealed her detention order and will try again today to win their client's release on bond.
"I can't believe it, he always seemed like such a nice man." Isn't that what the neighbors always say?
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