MONTELLO - A Baraboo man is starting his life over at age 53.

For the past three years, Scott Forbes has had what he calls a "sword of Damocles" over his head, waiting to fall.

"I was petrified," Forbes said. "I can tell you right now that my career was destroyed the moment the cops showed up."

The sword, in this case, was 17 counts of felony possession of child pornography and a potential sentence of 25 1/2 years in prison.

Forbes was charged in April 2006, after authorities discovered a computer disk containing a "significant amount of pornographic images" that included those of children, along with other files that belonged to Forbes, in the Montello office of the Marquette County Chemical Dependency Service that he had not occupied for a year, according to the criminal complaint.

Last week a Marquette County jury of 10 women and two men unanimously found Forbes not guilty of all 17 charges.

Disk discovered

The case began in October 2005 when the disk was discovered in an office Forbes used to occupy at the service. In November 2004, Forbes changed positions, becoming director of Hope Haven in Madison. Both programs are operated by the same organization - Catholic Charities of Madison, which serves 11 counties in Wisconsin.

After the discovery of the disk, authorities searched Forbes' Madison office, his former office in Montello, and his Baraboo home, taking all of his computers and disks.

The disk with the images is read/writable, Forbes said, and he had not been in the office where it was discovered for a year before it was found.

Investigators sent the disk to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, where experts identified three of the children in the photos, which are dated from the 1990s and had been "rather popular" at the time, said Marquette County District Attorney Richard Dufour, who prosecuted the case. The images included pictures of two boys between the ages of 13 and 15 and one girl about 8 to 10 years old, he said.

Losing job

Forbes, who admits he battled drug and alcohol problems in his earlier years, had spent 22 years working for various programs that assist those with similar addictions. He had several counseling certifications as well as a bachelor's degree in addiction and a master's degree in organizational management.

He was fired from his job immediately, before the charges were filed. He challenged the firing, and eventually the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development ruled in his favor.

"The state ruled that I had been terminated without cause," he said. "But that did not save my career."

Forbes said he "freaked out" when he was charged. He had lost his job; he lost friends. He was able to stave off bankruptcy by working as a carpenter.

"You can't apply for jobs when you've got 17 felonies on the record," he said. "I had to find a way to be self-employed."

He was forced to sell some of his family's property to avoid sinking too far into debt.

"It was very, very hard," he said.

Time stretched to three years as the trial date was reset several times, Forbes said. During the wait, Dufour contacted him a number of times with offers for a plea deal - one included an offer for him to plea to just one of the charges. But Forbes always refused.

"I was innocent," he said.

A conviction on even one charge could would mean a lifetime on the Wisconsin Sex Offender's Registry list and telling future employers that he is a convicted felon.

Judge changes decision

A key factor in his acquittal was a ruling on a motion to suppress evidence, at a hearing five months before the trial last week.

At the time of the initial investigation in October 2005, Marquette County Circuit Court Judge Richard O. Wright was approached by sheriff's deputies asking permission to search Forbes' offices and home.

Wright signed the search warrant, giving the authorities permission for the search. But at the motion hearing, Wright reversed his October 2005 decision, ruling that the results of the search of Forbes' home were not to be released to the jury because the evidence presented by deputies for the warrant was not strong enough.

"When you review them (later) there's always going to be thought put to it," Wright said.

He said he changed his mind after hearing the defendant's side of the case, argued by Forbes' defense attorney Keith Belzer of La Crosse, at the motion hearing.

Wright's earlier decision was based on the justification the sheriff's deputies gave to him as part of the warrant.

"In a search warrant, you're stuck with what you got put on paper," Wright said.

Forbes said the ruling - a judge ruling against his own earlier decision - shocked Belzer.

"You could've knocked my lawyer over with a feather," he said.

Maintains innocence

Forbes said the photos on the disk weren't his.

"I don't know where the illegal pictures came from," he said. "I'm not into kids and I wouldn't (download them) because it's illegal. There's no way."

Yes, he visited pornographic sites on the Internet in the past - all of which stated the photos were of adults, but never child pornography.

"That phase of my life was over a long time ago," he said.

Forbes married his wife, Dana, one year before the case began. Living with the possibility of being sent to prison for more than 25 years profoundly affected his relationship and his life, he said.

"It defines your life, defines what I can think about, what we think about," he said. "Because what if ... I go to jail forever?"

He said it was his wife's faith in him that helped him through.

"She's been fantastic," he said. "She didn't believe for a second that it was true."

The jury's decision has restored his faith in the average person, he said.

"You could tell how seriously they took this," he said.

Forbes, a bass player in the local hard-rock band Six Foot Sally, hopes sometime to use his master's degree and work as a manager. In the meantime, he will continue his work as a carpenter.

He said the moment Wright read the verdict - the judge took the time to read the verdict on each count individually - took him from terror to elation.

"I've done a few things in my life - the drugs and alcohol and thrill seeking, fallen desperately in love.... All of those things put together don't compare with standing there at the defendant's table listening to the judge read off individually those 17 (not guilty) counts," he said.

The whole experience was "terrifying" and "bizarre," he said.

"I felt terribly helpless through the whole thing," he said.

It has made him stronger, he said.

"I'd have been fine with being less strong," he added.

sgreen@capitalnewspapers.com

745-3504