ALPINE, Texas — The trial for a Terlingua man accused of running an obscene website has been pushed back.
Court documents obtained by NewsWest 9 show jury selection for the trial against Thomas Arthur has been set for October 20, 2020. The original trial date was set for June 2020.
Arthur’s defense team also requested that explicit drawings and stories of young children be removed from discovery and allow his team to make copies of the material for their efforts to prepare expert witness testimony.
At the hearing, the Government argued some of the material produced by Arthur depicts real individuals or is based on events that took place in real life. Arthur’s defense countered that, saying he doesn’t know if the drawings and stories in question are based on a real person or not.
The judge ruled that out of an abundance of caution, the material cannot be copied by any means, documents state.
All evidence material will now be made available to the FBI office in Midland, denying a motion from Arthur’s defense to have it moved to Austin.
Arthur was arrested in Nov 2019 on three charges involving distributing and selling obscene material involving children and the visual representation of sexual abuse of children. According to the FBI, the website had been running for at least 19 years with over 800 subscribers.
