TOLEDO, OH (September 29, 2007) - A Toledo jury found photojournalist Jeffrey Sauger guilty of criminal trespass and photojournalist Jim West not guilty of failure to disperse yesterday at the conclusion of a three day trial.
The two photographers were on trial following their arrests in Toledo in December 2005 where they were covering a Nazi rally in the city. Police arrested and charged Sauger with criminal trespass and West with failure to disperse. The two contended at the time of their arrest they were standing in a designated "media" area on a public street.
A third photographer arrested that day, Jeffery Willis of the Toledo Journal, had disorderly conduct charges against him dismissed last year.
Sauger, writing about the verdict today on a message board on SportsShooter.com, said that sentencing is set for next week before the trial judge, Lynn H. Schaefer. He says he's been told that he may be facing only paying court costs for the trial, but that's still uncertain at this point.
Police said Sauger lacked a temporary media credential for the event that had been issued to some news photographers earlier in the day. At the time of the arrest Sauger was standing in a media area, wearing his regular press credentials, and carrying and using professional photography equipment.
After Sauger and West were headed for trial there was an offer to drop the charges if the two photographers would sign a waiver releasing the City of Toledo from any responsibility. Sauger says that offer was quickly withdrawn when there was a change of prosecutors on the case.
"I'm sort of shell shocked that I was found guilty," Sauger wrote on the Internet message board. "In the scheme of things, this isn't like being tortured, beaten, injured, or killed; I'm thankful for that. I'm pissed off though. Civil rights in this country are going down the toilet and nobody seems to care."
Sauger says he's probably lost more than $6,000 in freelance jobs and wages based on the amount of time he's had to spend fighting the charges and the number of trips he's had to make from his base in Royal Oak, MI, to Toledo. Sauger says he thanks Gary Kemper, Tannen Maury, and his agency - European Pressphoto Agency - for supporting him during the two years that have passed since his arrest.
"This is the type of crap our legal system puts people through and people have asked about my experience. It's no wonder people just sign waivers," Sauger wrote.
Sauger, an NPPA member since 1990, and West are both professional photojournalists, with years of freelance experience working for major newspapers, magazines, and corporations.
