PITTSBURG, PA — Karen Fletcher’s attorney describes her as a “poor, damaged woman” who shared some of her darkest thoughts on her now defunct website in an attempt to “excise her torment.” U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti doesn’t care how tormented the 55-year-old woman is, however. Instead of agreeing to dismiss the six obscenity counts lodged against Fletcher, the judge instead informed her attorney that she would get her day in court.Whether Fletcher, whom Los Angeles attorney Jerome H. Mooney says is agoraphobic, will be able to take the stand in her own defense, is unknown. The ailment, which fills its victims with a sense of panic or dread when faced with embarrassing or difficult situations out of their control, causes many sufferers to remain secluded in their homes and other “safe” places. She was unable to attend her hearing due to her condition.

Charged in September with six counts of transporting obscene matter on the internet when she posted short stories about adult-child sex on her Red Rose Stories site, Fletcher is believed to be the first person in Western Pennsylvania charged with exclusively text based obscenity.

Although Mooney and fellow defense attorneys have argued the mere words, which they contend are “as close to the process of thought as we can get,” cannot be obscene. Conti disagreed, citing the 1995 Philadelphia 3rd U.S Circuit Court of Appeals decision overturning the dismissal of Extreme Associates’ obscenity case as precedent and proper excuse for a trial, although no date has been set.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Kaufman insists that the decision to try Fletcher on multiple obscenity counts is not an attempt on the government’s part to censor her thoughts. If one interprets Kaufman’s words correctly, publishing adult-child rape stories online may be perfectly legal – so long as no one makes any money off of them.

“This case is about the sale of those thoughts,” Kaufman explained, with Conti agreeing.

Fletcher’s thoughts have apparently rattled professionals in the past. Counsel reports that the woman has attempted to seek mental health treatment for her problems in the past, but was turned away by at least one therapist after revealing the contents of her writings.

The Red Rose Stories site required a credit card as verification of age and charged its 29 members a monthly fee of $10 for access to its story data base, which included tales of kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder of primarily female children between the ages of two and eight. The fee is alleged to have been required in order to deflect minors and those who would find the material offensive.

Mooney attempted to sway Conti’s decision by pointing out that society at large is much more tolerant of such material than previously, using Comedy Central’s South Park as an example. In one episode, eight-year-old Cartman becomes the poster child for NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, while another featured the adult male character of Chef being brainwashed into joining the child molesting Super Adventure Club. Neither episode drew government attention or censure.

The Justice Department reports that 59 legal cases included transmitting obscene matters as their lead charge between 1995 and 2005. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed the text as obscenity issue since 1972, it ruled in 1957 that obscene materials are not a form of protected speech. In order for Fletcher to be found guilty of obscenity, the government must convince a jury that her works appeal to the prurient interest of the average person – who, presumably does not find adult-child sex appealing – that its sexual content is patently offensive, and that the work’s entirety is without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value; something sometimes called the “SLAPS” test.

In response to Conti and Kaufman’s claim that Fletcher crossed the line when she took her work public via the internet, instead of keeping it for herself or sharing it with others face-to-face, Mooney reminded the court that “The First Amendment doesn’t mean much if one is only allowed to write down their own thoughts for their own perusal.”