Child porn charges dropped against local former teacher

NEWTON COUNTY, Ga. — Federal prosecutors in Atlanta have dropped child pornography charges against a former local middle school teacher.
              
Channel 2 investigative reporter Aaron Diamant spoke exclusively with William Kimbrell, who is now working to repair his reputation.
 
Until recently, the Covington man was scheduled to stand trial on the child porn charges.  Prosecutors dropped them based on new evidence Kimbrell's lawyer dug up.
 
"I've worked hard to build my reputation over the years," Kimbrell told Diamant Tuesday. "In just a matter of minutes, it was simply destroyed."
 
Federal child pornography charges blew up Kimbrell's life early last year.
 
"I had no idea what was going on," Kimbrell said. "I immediately felt it could be a mistake."
 
An indictment followed by a scathing press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia claimed an analysis of Kimbrell's home computer found "…remnants of files on the computer and was able to determine that Kimbrell had accessed child pornography on the internet from October to December, 2013, which includes the period that he was working as a teacher."
 
Kimbrell quickly resigned from the Barrow County School System, but he always maintained his innocence.
 
"I didn't do this," Kimbrell said. "I've never done anything like this and I never will. It's just not who I am, and anybody who knows me knows that."
 
Recently, just days before trial, federal prosecutors suddenly dropped all charges.
 
"I think this is the second time I've had this happen in 20 years," said Page Pate, Kimbrell's attorney.
 
Pate told Diamant his client doesn't deny using "peer to peer" software to access legal adult content and music files online. Pate also addresses those so-called "file remnants" to Kimbrell's computer that got the feds' attention.
 
"It is entirely possible, and we've seen this in other cases, where you'll be searching for something legal and you'll get something illegal, and at that point you can't just delete it off the computer," Pate said. "It doesn't go away."
 
One local cyber safety expert told Diamant amateur users should steer clear of peer to peer sites and software due to a long list of security issues.
 
The U.S. Attorney's Office declined Diamant's request for comment on this case.

WSBTV