Bond denied for Pfizer VP in child porn case

This is a really sad story. Sounds like this Pfizer VP needs psychiatric help more than anything else. Here it goes:

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested 61-year-old Alan Hesketh of Stonington last week on charges that he sent and received pornographic images of infants and children over the Internet, he told them that he knew this day would come, and that when it did, he would lose his wife, his job and his family.

Hesketh is being held at Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., after a U.S. magistrate judge in U.S. District Court in Hartford ruled Monday at a pretrial detention hearing that he was at risk of fleeing the country and could pose a danger to the public.

As the details of Hesketh's secret online life were described explicitly in the courtroom, Hesketh's four grown children, who flew in from England for the hearing, occasionally broke down into tears as they sat with their mother on a court bench directly at their father's back.

The gray-haired Hesketh, wearing round wire spectacles, had turned to reach out to his family as he was ushered into the hearing, but marshals prevented him from doing so.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah R. Slater described Hesketh as a well-respected Pfizer executive with four grown children in England, a wife of 39 years, and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry. For the past five years, that same man, she said, had been living another life online as a 28-year-old female named “Suzibibaby,” who traded, discussed and gained pleasure from images of infants and children engaged in sexual acts, some involving feces.

“He spoke almost as if he was Suzibibaby,” Slater said of Hesketh’s conversations with authorities, after he was arrested. “He said, ‘Suzi’s a good girl. Suzi doesn’t cause any trouble.’

”Slater said Hesketh - a grandfather of five - told agents that when he traveled he carried more than 1,000 images of child pornography on three thumb drives. Almost daily he chatted online and viewed and traded images at his home in Stonington, on trips abroad and at his job at Pfizer, Slater said.

Hesketh, a legal resident alien from England, was fired Friday from his job as Pfizer’s global patent director. He worked for the company for six years. He previously worked for nine years as an executive for Glaxo Wellcome pharmaceuticals in England.

Authorities arrested Hesketh at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York after he allegedly traded images with a man from Buffalo, N.Y., while chatting with him online between June 2006 and May 2007. Agents seized the man’s computers, which later led them to Hesketh.

“This is just one conversation with one individual,” Slater said.“He had this persona, by his own admission, for five years now.”Slater said Hesketh admitted to chatting and trading child pornography over many years under several different online identities.

Attorney Jonathan Einhorn attempted to persuade U.S.Magistrate Judge Donna F.Martinez that Hesketh should be released to house arrest under the care of his wife and four children, who had agreed to take three-month shifts supporting their mother and father at their home in Stonington.

Einhorn argued that, under their care, Hesketh would be safer than in federal prison and would be able to obtain proper psychiatric care for his alleged sexual disorder. Prosecutors said agents were concerned both about the mental health of Hesketh - who they said discussed suicide his first night incustody - and of his wife, Jan, who Slater said “was distraught to the point that the agents were concerned about her well-being.”

Einhorn said Jan Hesketh is completely reliant on her husband’s financial support, has no job to speak of and has no knowledge of the family’s finances. Slater said Jan Hesketh told authorities that she and her husband had been having marital difficulties and were on the verge of divorce.

“I’m totally adrift. I can’t focus,”Jan Hesketh said in court. “He’s the only one who can sort out the finances. … I’m such a victim. I don’t want to be victimized anymore than I am already.”

In court, Hesketh told Martinez that he owns homes in Stonington, New York, England and the Isle of Man, which together are valued in the millions of dollars. Einhorn argued that Hesketh should be released to his wife’s and the probation department’s custody and supervision on $500,000 bond, to be secured by his U.S. homes.

“The idea that he would go anywhere or commit the slightest infraction at this point I think is highly unlikely,” Einhorn said of Hesketh, who has no known criminal or substance-abuse history and whose passport has been seized by authorities.

Hesketh’s children also argued to have their father returned home, saying they could provide emotional support for their parents.

“We’re always going to support the man,” said Hesketh’s 35-year old daughter, Emily.

Martinez said she would not release Hesketh, adding that she believed he could flee the country based on his wealth, resources and connections outside of the U.S.

“What I see here is a man who has been making a lot of money for along time and until recently probably presented himself as being in an enviable position,” Martinez said.

Hesketh’s children sobbed and embraced upon hearing that their father would not be released.

A probable-cause hearing was scheduled for April 10. If convictedat trial, Hesketh faces a minimum sentence of five years in prison.

Source.