Frank Super Trial Testimony extract
30th November 2000 case 4:00-CR-054-Y
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 667
Please raise your right hand and be sworn.
(The witness is sworn.)
THE COURT: You may be seated, sir.
FRANK B. SUPER,
having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. BALL:
Q. Could you tell us your name, please, sir.
A. Frank B. Super.
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 668
Q. And how are you employed or occupied, Mr. Super?
A. I'm a special agent with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
Q. All right. And how long have you been a special agent
with the FBI?
A. About three and a half years.
Q. And what sort of occupational line of work were you in
prior to becoming a special agent with the FBI?
A. I was an officer in the United States Marine Corps.
Q. I gather to qualify yourself to become a special agent
with the FBI, did you attend a course of training supplied to
all FBI agents at a location, at the FBI location, at Quantico,
Virginia?
A. That is correct.
Q. All right. And let me direct your attention to the matter
at hand here. Did you ever have occasion to have any contact
with a company or individuals at a business known as Landslide?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. What is your best recollection of the first inquiry or
contact you might have had with the business or people at
Landslide?
A. Okay. In the summer of 1997, I'm estimating around the
August time period, the exact date being a bit unclear, but I
know it was during the summer of 1997, my supervisor at the
time, he told me that he had received some information from our
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 669
Dallas office that a business located in Fort Worth by the name
of Landslide, that someone had been on the internet and had
seen some child pornography.
The complaint came through the Dallas office. Apparently
the complainant was someone over in the Dallas side of the
metroplex. And my supervisor gave me a routing slip or some
type of a piece of paper with an address on Belknap Street in
Fort Worth, the name Landslide, and I believe there was a -
there might have been a name of a web site possibly on there by
the name of Child God or something like that. He asked me if I
would go to the address on Belknap Street, look up the owners
or those who are responsible for Landslide, and find out what
was going on.
I did so. I went down to Belknap Street at the address.
The address on Belknap Street was a red brick building on the
south side of the street. I went in there and inquired about
Landslide. The people there at that office told me that
Landslide was actually across the street in a white building on
the north side of Belknap.
So I went across the street and went upstairs to the
offices of Landslide, and when I got to the offices no one was
there. So I went to the bathroom and when I came out of the
bathroom a lady and a young man were just coming into the
office area from outside. She identified herself as Carol
Clark. She told me she was the office manager for Landslide.
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 670
I asked her -- Of course, I identified myself as Frank Super,
FBI. I showed her my credentials and I asked her if I could
speak with the owner of the company. There was a complaint
regarding some child pornography.
She said she didn't know anything about that, but she told
me that if I would give her my card that she would have the
owner call me. I went ahead and gave her my card, and then I
left Landslide.
Q. All right. And was that contact, the individuals that you
had contact with at Landslide, generally cooperative with you?
A. Yes.
Q. Providing whatever information you asked for that they
could at that time?
A. Yes, very cooperative.
Q. All right.
A. What happened next was I went back to my office. Over the
next two weeks or so, Mr. Reedy, Thomas Reedy, he attempted to
contact me on the telephone. I attempted to call him back. We
kind of played phone tag for a couple of weeks. We finally got
in contact with one another.
Mr. Reedy told me that he was familiar with the web site
Child God. He told me that Child God was an Indonesian child
pornography site -- or, correction. He told me it was a
pornography site that sometimes slipped child pornography into
its web site.
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 671
Q. All right.
A. And he informed me that this had happened periodically
with some web sites. He told me his policy regarding this type
of occurrence when child pornography came on to -- or through
his system and his folks picked it up was that he would tell
the web site "stop doing that or we're going to cut you off
from our system. We're not going to allow you to go through
our domain any longer."
And Mr. Reedy explained to me that with Child God being an
Indonesian site that they were -- From that point on, if they
didn't stop, they were going to be cut off from using his
domain, period.
Q. Okay. And did he describe generally how his business
worked as far as verifying the adult status of people that
wanted to look at various types of pornography and issuing them
passwords and user names and getting a credit card? Did he
give you a general description of how his business worked?
A. I believe he did; that his business was a credit card
verification service that verified that you're an adult for
these web sites.
Q. All right.
A. During the course of the conversation, since Mr. Reedy
informed me that he was aware of some of these web sites that
would then slip into this child pornography thing, you know,
being a fresh young agent out of Quantico, we had had classes
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 672
on our Task Forces across the United States called Innocent
Images which were combatting child pornography, I thought there
might be an opportunity at this point to possibly get some
information about illegal activity. And I said, hey,
Mr. Reedy, if you get some more of these web sites that deal in
child pornography, especially ones that originate in the United
States where we have some jurisdiction, why don't you go ahead
and give me a call.
Q. All right. And was Mr. Reedy's response that he would do
that?
A. Yes.
Q. All right. He seemed willing to cooperate in that
particular endeavor, correct, sir?
A. That's correct.
Q. And the web site that was the subject matter of the
routing slip that you got was child God as best you recall; is
that right?
A. That sounds familiar, yes.
Q. All right. And Mr. Reedy told you that that site
occasionally slipped in some child pornography. He seemed to
be aware of that; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. He used the term "slipped in"?
A. I can't recall the exact term or how it was couched, but
he was aware that Child God had put child pornography in
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 673
through his domain and that it was wrong, that they weren't
supposed to do that. They knew it, and he was going to tell
them to stop doing it or he was going to cut them off.
Q. All right. Now, he advised you that that site he believed
to be someone in Indonesia, in the country of Indonesia?
A. That is correct.
Q. All right. What was your reaction to learning that as far
as your ability to do anything with regard to the individual
running Child God in Indonesia?
A. Well, after Mr. Reedy and I had our conversation, I went
and spoke with my supervisor. We documented the information on
a routing slip. We passed the information up through our chain
of command. It was our opinion that, just mine and my
supervisor's, that because the web site in question was in
Indonesia, we really didn't have any jurisdiction there and we
went ahead and -- well, we believed there was nothing else we
could do.
It appeared that Mr. Reedy was cooperating, that he
understood there was a problem there and he said he was going
to take care of it. We didn't have any other complaints in
Fort Worth, so we went ahead and just routed the information up
through the chain of command and left it at that.
Q. All right. As part of your inquiry and investigation, did
you actually go to the site Child God on a computer somewhere
and attempt to look at it?
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 674
A. No. No, I didn't.
Q. All right. And was your opinion about the jurisdictional
question, was that a subject matter, the conversation with
Mr. Reedy when you told him, well, look, if you see something
in the United States give me a call.
A. I think I did discuss that briefly, yes.
Q. And might you have referred to the Task Force, Innocent
Images, during the course of the conversation, that there was a
national task force?
A. Yes. I think I did inform Mr. Reedy that, yes, hey,
there's a nationwide effort called Innocent Images where we're
going after these child pornographers. If you get some more
information that originates in the USA, give us a call and
we'll go after it.
Q. All right. Did you later have a subsequent contact with
Landslide or individuals of that business?
A. Yes. The next year around August of 1998 time period, our
Hong Kong office sent us a lead, which was a request to gather
some information regarding the Sri Lankan chief of police.
Apparently the Sri Lankan chief of police's credit card had
been used to purchase some pornography on the internet. And I
guess the subscriber information came back to Landslide.
So at that time I went ahead back over to Landslide, and I
spoke with Ms. Clark again. I asked her -- I had this
information regarding this credit card number. Can you tell me
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 675
what this credit card was used to purchase. She got on her
computer and said, yeah, it's been used here. And I can't
remember at this point if she printed it out for me there or if
I went back to my office and then she faxed it.to me. I can't
remember but she did provide the information which had the IP
address where the billing was occurring from.
As a result of her information she gave to me, we were
able to trace that the credit card purchases were actually
coming from Sri Lankan and it gave where the IP provider was at
and all that.
Q. All right. Now, this was an assistance of the United
States government to Sri Lankan officials as requested through
the Hong Kong office, correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. So were the people at Landslide with regard to the
information you requested cooperative in providing you the
documentation that you needed to assist in this matter?
A. Yes. And I think as I recall, Mr. Reedy even called me up
and said, hey, did you get what you needed from Ms. Clark. And
I said, yes, thank you.
Q. All right. And as it turned out -- Did Mr. Reedy ask you
in the conversation did that work out, or, did they find out who
that was or something? Do you recall having a conversation
where you might have related it turns out it was the police
chief's son or something?
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL TV, 676
A. I can't recall if I told him that. I recall that it was
or it appeared to be the police chief's son at the time.
Q. All right.
A. But I can't recall if I told Mr. Reedy that or not.
Q. All right. Now, this particular -- that particular part
of your investigation regarding the credit card, did you make a
report and create documents --
A. Yes.
Q. -- and forward to Hong Kong or Sri Lanka?
A. As per normal procedure, a report of my conversation was
created with -- the report of my conversation with Ms. Clark
was done; however, when sending reports that are going to be
seen by foreign governments, the bureau policy is that a
letterhead memorandum is done, which has some different
procedures as far as mentioning names and that sort of thing.
So I had to actually make two reports, and those were sent to
Hong Kong. And then Hong Kong, of course, would forward the
letterhead memorandum to the Sri Lankan chief of police and
they would take action as necessary.
Q. Okay. You were careful to follow the FBI's protocol in
creating and reporting what your investigation had shown,
correct, sir?
A. That is correct.
Q. Now, with regard to the other matter of inquiry of Child
God, did you similarly create documents, memorandums of
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 677
interviews, and information gathered during the investigation
of that inquiry?
A. No. On that particular inquiry, we had received the
complaint in an unofficial sort of a phone call, and my boss, I
think, wrote it down on a routing slip. "Here, Frank, go check
that out," which isn't all that unusual. The initial
investigation that I did after I did it and speaking with my
supervisor, there didn't seem to be anything there. So there
was no official complaint form filled in, no official report.
Reports aren't always done on complaints if it seems like
there's nothing there. And, remember, that at the time I had
only been at the field office here for a couple of months, and
I was still kind of getting my feet on solid ground, so to
speak, as far as all the procedures the FBI does follow.
Q. All right. We've had a conversation I think a week or a
few weeks ago; is that correct, sir?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you acknowledge that perhaps hindsight would have been
a better practice to more accurately document the matters of
that inquiry?
A. I think 20/20 hindsight, of course, knowing what I know
now, three years of experience helps a whole bunch. If I was
to do that much investigation now where I actually go somewhere
and talk to people, I would have definitely written it down on
a complaint form, at least on a complaint form, and document it
SUPER - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 678
that way.
Q. And you indicated you did maybe make some notes on the
routing slip or something of that form. Have you attempted to
locate that document so that you might refresh your memory to
be a little bit more clear on dates and things of that nature?
A. Yes. When I first heard of this -- the case with
Landslide, I did a very extensive search of my files in Fort
Worth, of the files that I kept in another room. I traveled to
the Dallas field office where these types of crimes -- at the
time in '97 when we looked into this, this complaint came from
our computer folks. So if the information would have been
written down and sent to Dallas, it would have been to the
Dallas squad and put into the Dallas information file.
I traveled to Dallas. I spent a day there looking through
their information files, and I didn't find it anywhere.
Q. All right. And as we sit here today, you've not been able
to locate that document, correct, sir?
A. That's correct.
Q. All right. And, incidentally, in the course of your
contacts with Landslide, Mr. Reedy, Carol Clark, or anyone else
associated with that business on the two occasions and in the
-- I think maybe there was a follow-up phone call from
Mr. Reedy about did you get what you were looking for, did you
ever advise Mr. Reedy or anyone else at Landslide to stop doing
what they're doing?
SUPER - CROSS - MOORE VOL IV, 679
A. To stop doing their business?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. No.
Q. All right. Or that their business was wrong or illegal
under any federal law?
A. No.
Q. All right. Thank you, Agent.
MR. BALL: I'll pass the witness.
THE COURT: Is there additional direct?
MR. HEISKELL: No, Your Honor.
THE COURT: You may proceed.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
BY MS. MOORE:
Q. Agent Super, why didn't you advise him to stop running his
business?
A. Well, from what he told me, he was running a legitimate
business, albeit, it's adult pornography sites. He told me
that child pornography would sometimes come through his domain,
through his Landslide, and when it did he said he would call
the people and tell them to stop it or he would stop servicing
them.
Q. So let me see if I've got this right. You show up there
to ask about this complaint where somebody said there was child
porn, and he tells you, "I'm in the credit card verification
business. Occasionally something like this comes through. I
SUPER - CROSS - MOORE VOL IV, 680
tell them to stop it; if they don't I cut them off."
A. That's correct.
Q. And you took the man at his word.
A. Right.
Q. And you were how long out of school?
A. About two to three months.
Q. Okay. And with that two to three months' experience you
took a man at his word.
A. Correct.
Q. And you didn't go a step further with it.
A. The only other step I did was talk to my supervisor about
Q. And you relayed what you just relayed, hey, it
occasionally happens, he warns them, and it looks like there's
nothing here.
A. Exactly. My supervisor who at the time had 13 years
experience told me, hey, doesn't seem like there's anything
there. Let's send this up to Dallas and you're done.
Q. Now, Agent Super, did you have any idea that Thomas Reedy
and Landslide and Janice Reedy had a financial agreement with
foreign webmasters where they would -- foreign webmasters who
supplied child pornography on the internet?
A. No.
Q. Where they would keep 40 percent of the income that was
derived from child pornography and forward on 60 percent to the
SUPER - CROSS - MOORE VOL IV, 681
webmasters that hosted the child pornography?
A. No, I wasn't aware of that.
Q. You didn't have a clue, did you?
A. No.
Q. Did you have a clue as to whether or not Mr. Reedy knew
that those sites were up and running and that he was monitoring
them?
A. No.
Q. Did you have a clue that he would sometimes chastise a
webmaster for his "lack of content" if customers complained
that it wasn't dirty enough?
A. No.
Q. You didn't know any of that back when you dropped by that
office?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever meet the man in person, by the way?
A. No, I didn't.
Q. This was all just a quick phone call?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. And did you have a clue that Children of God was
still running in 1999?
A. No, I didn't.
Q. And this was an inquiry you made in the summer of '97?
A. That is correct.
Q. Okay. Now, you say your second time that you had contact
SUPER - CROSS - MOORE VOL IV, 682
with him was over this chief of police from Sri Lanka's credit
card. Do you know whether the chief's kid was buying adult
porn or child porn?
A. I think that the web site in question -- I can't remember
the name of it and I wouldn't be able to tell you if it was
child porn or regular porn.
Q. Did the name bring to mind that it might be children?
A. No. It didn't have anything child mentioned in it.
Q. So it was like, oh, the chief's kid got his credit card
and looked at some pictures.
A. That's correct.
Q. Okay. And the complaint was the chief thought somebody
was adding something to his charge card and for y'all to go
look at it.
A. That is correct.
Q. But, again, you don't know which one it was, but you
certainly had no reason to think it was child porn?
A. That is correct.
Q. Now, you say you wanted to try to see if maybe, even
though you just had a couple of months training, you thought
maybe this guy might be a good source of information in the
event child porn came through his business, he could call you
and you could establish a rapport with somebody that might
actually be able to lead you to stuff down the line.
A. That is correct.
SUPER - CROSS - MOORE VOL IV, 683
Q. And you said, man, if this comes across your desk I wish
you would call us because we've got Innocent Images out here
that can investigate this.
A. That is correct.
Q. Did he call you ever, Agent Super?
A. No. I never had any contact with him between the August
'97 time period until I had a lead from Hong Kong and he called
and said did you get what you needed and, yes, thank you.
Other than that, nothing.
Q. But not one time did he ever pick up that phone and call
you and say, hey, this is what's going on. There is child
pornography.
A. No, he never called.
Q. Not one time.
A. No.
Q. Now, did you advise him, hey, you're doing a good job
there, buddy. You keep those sites rolling.
A. I never had occasion to speak with him to tell him that,
and I never did have a conversation like that.
Q. Okay. The brief little conversation you had was just
exactly what you described on two different occasions that
lasted (snaps fingers) that long.
A. That's correct.
Q. There was no investigation any further into it.
A. No.
DAY - DIRECT - BALL VOL IV, 684
MS. MOORE: I'll pass the witness.
THE COURT: Is there redirect?
MR. BALL: No, Your Honor.
THE COURT: You may step down, sir. Thank you.
Any reason why Mr. Super may not be released?
MR. BALL: No, Your Honor.
THE COURT: You're free to go as well, sir.
Please call your next witness.