SALT LAKE CITY, UT – Child porn charges brought against a former meteorologist for KUTV in Salt Lake City and his business partner may hinge on the definition of “lascivious exhibition,” a term which is not defined in federal law.Matthew John Duhamel, who once worked as weatherman for KUTV in Salt Lake under the name “Matt McCoy,” and business partner Charles Philip Granere face charges of transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography for allegedly operating websites that featured scantily girls as young as nine in sexually suggestive poses.

Federal prosecutors say the photos on Duhamel’s websites cross the line into child pornography, but Duhamel’s attorney, Richard Mauro, argues that because the children depicted are not naked, the photographs are not “sexually explicit.”

Mauro said he has not seen the images, but charging documents in the case state that none of the girls were nude. Those same documents, though, specify that the images show preteen girls wearing lingerie, or less, and that some of images focus on areas below the waist.

In court documents, the prosecution asserts that the photographs depict minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct which, regardless of whether it is real or simulated sexual activity, is a violation of federal law if a “lascivious exhibition” of the girls’ private parts occurs.

Federal law doesn’t specifically define what “lascivious exhibition” is, but a six-part test from the 1986 child pornography case U.S. v. Dost is used in the federal courts in Utah and will likely be the standard the court relies on in considering the charges against Duhamel and Granere.

In the U.S. v. Dost decision, the decision held that in making such determinations, courts should consider the following: if the focal point of the photographs is on a child’s private area; how clothed the child is; whether the pose suggests sexual coyness; if the pose is sexually suggestive; if the child is in an unnatural pose or age-inappropriate attire; and whether the picture is intended to elicit a sexual response from the viewer.