from www.theledger.com – LAKELAND FL | An appeals court today reversed the conviction of former Scott Lake Principal John Stelmack on child pornography charges.

A three-judge panel of the Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland ruled photographs he had were not child pornography because the nude bodies shown were those of an adult. Photos of the faces of children, some of them Scott Lake students, had been placed on those bodies, but none of the photos actually showed children nude.

“Unseemly as the images in this case may be, their possession is not (outlawed in Florida) because the only sexual conduct in the images is that of an adult,” worte Judge Morris Silberman wrote in the opinion. Judges Charles A. Davis and Marva Crenshaw concurred in the opinion.

Appellate judges heard arguments Oct. 13 about whether children’s faces cut from photographs and pasted onto an images of adult nude bodies should be considered child pornography.

Lawrence Walters, a lawyer for John Stelmack, a former Lakeland elementary principal, argued such images aren’t child pornography, and his client’s conviction and 5-year prison sentence should be thrown out.

Walters said the images don’t fit the legal definition of child pornography because they “do not depict a child engaged in sexual conduct.”

He said a federal law was created to address “composite or morphed images,” but no such law exists under state law.

“As uncomfortable as the images may make us feel, they simply are not reached by current Florida law,” he said.

Diana K. Bock, an assistant state attorney general, insisted the images are child pornography, and the ex-educator’s punishment is appropriate.

Bock said the purpose of creating the images was to objectify a real child and to represent sexual conduct by that child.

“Once that picture was placed on that body, it changed the nature of that picture,” she said.

The appeals court judges, however, sided with the defense and said that if the state Legislature had intended to make simulated child sexual exposure illegal it would have had to write that into state law.

Deputies arrested Stelmack in December 2007 after finding cut-and-paste images in his briefcase in a closet in his office at Scott Lake Elementary School.

At the time, Stelmack was on suspension while school officials investigated accusations he had inappropriately hugged fifth-grade girls.

Four images recovered from Stelmack’s briefcase had the face of a 12-year-old Scott Lake student. One other image had the face of an 11-year-old student from a school in New York where Stelmack previously served as principal.

The girls’ faces were superimposed over the head of a 19-year-old nude model.

Last year, a jury found Stelmack guilty of five counts of possessing child pornography. He was sentenced July 10, 2009, to five years in prison and 10 years of sex offender probation.

Stelmack’s lawyers so far have failed in attempts to get him released from prison while his appeal is pending.

Another Polk County case will be affected by the 2nd DCA’s decision in Stelmack’s appeal. Danny Lynn Parker, a former volunteer Sunday school teacher, told detectives he made similar cut-and-paste images after news reports surfaced of Stelmack’s case, according to investigative reports.

Rather than go to trial, Parker accepted a plea deal for five years in prison and 10 years of sex-offender probation. But Parker retained his right to appeal the case.