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So Pat O’Malley is going to plead guilty to one count of obscenity.  Based on evidence obtained from a search warrant served in 2004.

In November of that year, sources revealed that FBI agents confiscated two personal computers from O’Malley’s home in Chagrin Falls. A search warrant showed that investigators were looking for records related to a billboard deal involving the city of Cleveland.

The search warrant also said the FBI was looking for material containing child pornography.

Investigators at the time also took a tool box from Vicki O’Malley that belonged to her husband. According to a subpoena acquired by The Plain Dealer, the investigators wanted to search the tool box for evidence related to the possession child pornography.

If the FBI served a subpoena in 2004 looking for child pornography, how on earth did it take almost 4 YEARS to get an indictment?  Surely a cursory search of the evidence would have turned up the child pornography in a matter of hours, even minutes.  And how is it that O’Malley gets to plead to one felony count of obscenity?  There is zero chance that only one image was on the evidence seized in 2004.  Even the indictment uses plural.

the defendant, Patrick J. O’Malley did knowingly use an interactive computer service for the carriage in interstate and foreign commerce of numerous obscene, lewd, lascivious, and filthy pictures, writings and other matters of indecent character.

Speaking as someone who was in Bill Mason’s crosshairs for a crime that was way less serious than this, I can tell you from personal experience that if Bill Mason wants to pin your ass to the wall on this stuff, he will do so.  He hasn’t done so with his good buddy Pat O’Malley.  O’Malley could easily be charged with one count EACH for every single image that he possessed, and one count EACH for every single time he distributed that image.  And he gets to plead to one count?

All this makes me wonder what Bill Mason’s role in this case has been.