Inquisition: Jason “Dagon” Weirbach Releases Statement on Child Pornography Charges
Inquistion’s Jason “Dagon” Weirbach has sent the below statement to MetalSucks. The statement is in response to the story we ran this morning, in which we reported that “Weirbach plead guilty to Unlawful Display of Sexually Explicit Material and Obstructing a Law Enforcement Officer.”
We present Weirbach’s statement without commentary below. However, there are some aspects of his statement that we feeel require clarification on our part. Our additional commentary appears below Weirbach’s statement.
“Axl,
“Feel free to publish my side of the story.
“I never plead guilty to the initial charges, had I done that the trial would have immediately come to a closing. The title in your article is incorrect.
“Jason
“To all fans, supporters and close ones, I would like to clarify some horrific misinformation generated by the webzine MetalSucks of a personal matter of mine in 2007: First you must take into account, everything MetalSucks published is taken from court documents that state charges and accusations rather than what was proven or admitted in 2007. Second, I never plead guilty to the charges and the original charges were dropped after the courts examined all evidence. I am not a sex offender, and I was absolutely innocent of all charges. The plea bargain was something the prosecutor insisted on and for the defense was the best option to end a lengthy legal process. Also, the background check webpage circulating is not entirely correct, it is definitely not showing what the Police background check would show you.
“With my fullest respect to you, please read my statement MetalSucks had told me they would publish:
“I made a very unwise choice of actions in 2007 which got me into some legal problems. After the investigation was conducted, a year and a half later after the initial charges, the original charges brought against me were dropped and a plea deal was presented to me. The investigation determined I did not have anything that fell under the original charge.
“The police report suggested I had deleted and obstructed evidence which I deny to have done, however the obstruction charge was still part of the plea deal as was the other charge mentioned in this article. That second charge is related to viewing pornography in a public area, and again was taken as part of the plea deal. To be clear, I have no sex crimes, this did not involve any other person other than myself and I have moved forward since 2009 while having complied with all aspects of the law.
“I wish to remain focused on my music and my absolute dedication to the art of Black Metal. Despite any personal views and judgements the followers and supporters of our music may have, I am a somewhat private person and have never cared for destructive sensationalism and keeping what I feel is private, private.
“I hope my level of transparency is understood and I thank you, as always for having been so supportive of Inquisition.
“Dagon”
Regarding several of Weirbach’s claims:
1. “The title in your article is incorrect.”
Our headline specifically says that the charges to which Weirbach plead guilty were “related” to child pornography. They were. There would have been no investigation if not for the tracing of child pornography to Weirbach’s IP address.
2. “I never plead guilty to the charges.”
It’s not clear what he means when he says “I never plead guilty” to the charges, because that’s only true of the initial charge, Possession of Depictions of a Minor Engaged in Sexually Explicit Conduct. He absolutely plead guilty to charges of Unlawful Display of Sexually Explicit Material and Obstructing a Law Enforcement Officer, as demonstrated by the documentation below.
3. “[P]lease read my statement MetalSucks had told me they would publish.”
We believe Weirbach is referring to our request for a comment yesterday morning from Inquistion’s now-former label, Season of Mist. At that time, we told Season of Mist we’d be running the story this morning, and gave them twenty-four hours to comment. Their response said simply that they no longer worked with Inquistion. Had we been made aware of Weirbach’s statement at any point prior to publication, we would have included it in the original article. We were not given the statement until Weirbach sent it to us directly at 11:59 a.m. EDT today.
4. “I am not a sex offender.”
See documentation below. While it’s worth noting that Weirbach may not be on a registry of sex offenders, the state of Washington requires no such registry for this categorization.
