The two defendants appealed their sentencing, claiming, among other reasons, that the evidence introduced in court against them was highly prejudicial. The defendants had claimed that they were not interested in child sexual abuse material but wanted to watch other men masturbate on the platform. Child sexual abuse video clips and chat logs of the Zoom sessions and the child sexual abuse material found on the defendants’ devices were introduced as evidence in court to rebuke the defendants’ claims that they were not aware and/or did not enter the Zoom room for the purposes of child sexual abuse and exploitation.

The introduction of the child sexual abuse video clips as evidence was a particular point of contention for the defendants. The introduction of the video clips as evidence was viewed as necessary to prove conspiracy to engage in child sexual abuse and exploitation by showing that the Zoom room served as a “haven” whereby individuals gathered to discuss and share child sexual abuse material. Specifically, the court held that:

“the video clips helped to establish the culture that permeated the Zoom chats. That was an important part of proving that the participants were involved in such a unity of purpose and common undertaking that they had necessarily entered into an agreement that this type of material be received or distributed…The government’s attempt to verbalize what the defendants were watching may well have been inadequate to communicate the nature of the Zoom chats or whether the unity of purpose between these defendants was such that it suggested an implicit agreement to participate in these livestreams, as opposed to “merely” separately observing them.”

The court ultimately ruled that risk of the prejudicial influence of this evidence on jurors was outweighed by the evidence being “highly probative of the conspiracy and the defendants’ awareness of what they were involved in.” Therefore, the court held that the District Court properly admitted the videos.