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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, December 15, 2005

Police employee indicted in downloading of porn

By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer

A civilian employee of the Honolulu Police Department was indicted yesterday by an O'ahu grand jury for allegedly downloading thousands of pornographic images and movies onto his work computer.

Richard Rapozo, 65, a computer analyst formerly assigned to the police department's Information Technology Division, is accused of four counts of unauthorized computer access in the second degree. If convicted of the felony charges, Rapozo will face up to five years in jail and a $10,000 fine for each count.

Rapozo has been with the police department for five years. He has been transferred to the Records Division, where he does not have access to a computer, according to police spokeswoman Michelle Yu.

A bench warrant for Rapozo's arrest was issued at 1 p.m. yesterday, but was not clear whether he was arrested or will be allowed to surrender to authorities.

Deputy City Prosecutor Chris Van Marter said detectives with the department's Internal Affairs Division turned the case over to prosecutors after discovering more than 60,000 images of "adult pornography" and more than 3,000 pornographic movies on Rapozo's computer.

"City employees are authorized to use their computer for work-related purposes," Van Marter said. "They are not authorized to visit pornographic Web sites and download images. That is not authorized use of a city computer."

Rapozo allegedly began downloading the material in April 2003.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.