When a former teacher at the Gilman School appears this week in federal court, it will mark a rare instance of a case going to trial that involves charges of possession of child pornography.
Across the United States, only 41 cases — or 2.9% — in fiscal year 2023 went to trial, according to statistics from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. In Maryland, there were none.
On Wednesday, Chris Bendann, who worked at the private, independent all-boys school in Roland Park from 2007 to 2023, is set to stand trial in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on charges of sexual exploitation of a child, possession of child pornography and cyberstalking.
These cases pose challenges for the criminal justice system and the people tasked with conducting the trial.
Bendann, 40, of Baltimore, is accused of victimizing a student and recording videos of the sexual abuse. He maintains his innocence.
During a hearing on Aug. 9, Assistant U.S. Attorney Colleen McGuinn said federal prosecutors plan to show the jury clips from eight videos. Both sides, she said, have agreed that the monitors that face the audience in the courtroom will be turned off.
U.S. Senior District Judge James K. Bredar instructed prosecutors and defense attorneys to provide court staff with advance notice if they intend to present “this sort of graphic visual evidence.”
“There needs to be a rehearsal of methods and techniques,” Bredar said. “The right balance needs to be struck, and we have to get it right.”
Meanwhile, Gary Proctor, one of Bendann’s attorneys, expressed a concern that jurors will notice the precautions.
Bredar said court staff will do their best to conceal these efforts. “Nobody is going to highlight it,” he said. “No one is going to call attention to it.”
When he served as U.S. attorney for Maryland from 2005 to 2017, Rod Rosenstein said, these cases would occasionally go to trial.
Sometimes, Rosenstein said, people will agree that photos and videos are child sexual abuse material but dispute that they possessed them. If that happens, the jury does not have to see the images.
But Rosenstein, who later served as deputy U.S. attorney general, said there are other times in which it’s impossible to shield jurors. Rosenstein said there are three defenses in these cases: “It’s not a child. It’s not sex. It’s not me.”
“If the defense insists that it has a viable argument,” he said, “then the jury would have to watch the video and draw its own conclusion.”
The U.S. Department of Justice has written policies and procedures for safeguarding child sexual abuse material.
“I have likened it to handling any type of contraband in a courtroom,” said Kenya Davis, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney from 2009 to 2022 in Washington, D.C., including as a senior trial attorney in the Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Section. “You handle it as almost if it was a gun or a packet of drugs.”
“It’s not going to be left in the courtroom,” she said. “It’s not going to be passed around haphazardly.”
Davis said the reason that many of these cases do not go to trial is that the evidence can be damning. The sentencing guidelines, she said, are also severe.
“It’s hard to get away with saying, ‘It’s not me, or it’s not the kid, or what I was doing was not sexual abuse,’” said Davis, who’s now a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP in Washington, D.C. “It’s just really hard to get around the video.”
When prosecutors extend plea agreements in these cases, she said, they’re often thinking about the possibility that a child would have to testify.
But Davis said these children are brave and resilient. And they will take the stand if necessary.
Survivors of sexual abuse want to see their perpetrators brought to justice, said Lisae Jordan, executive director and counsel at the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
But every time other people witness their exploitation, Jordan said, that feels invasive and harmful.
“You know intellectually that it’s a juror or prosecutor or a judge,” Jordan said. “But it still feels wrong. And it still feels harmful.”
Steve Silverman, managing partner of Silverman Thompson in Baltimore, represents the student who reported that Bendann sexually abused him.
When the FBI has done its due diligence and certified that images are child sexual abuse material, Silverman said, “it’s pretty much a strict liability case.”
“It’s heartbreaking that it is going to trial,” Silverman said. “But I guess that’s the defendant’s right.”
