S.F. ? rights advocate arrested over child porn

Rachel Gordon

Published 09:21 p.m., Monday, June 25, 2012











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San Francisco police have arrested veteran ? rights advocate Larry Brinkin in connection with felony possession of child pornography.

Brinkin, 66, who worked for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission before his retirement in 2010, was taken into custody Friday night. He spent the night in jail before he was released on bail, according to a spokeswoman for the sheriff's department.

The district attorney's office will decide Tuesday whether to file charges. "We're still reviewing the case," district attorney's spokeswoman Stephanie Ong Stillman said Monday.

Police say that Brinkin had pornographic images, some that appear to show children as young as 1 and 2 or 3 years old being sodomized and performing oral sex on adult men, in e-mail attachments linked to his account, according to a search warrant served by San Francisco police.

Representatives of America Online contacted authorities after coming across e-mail attachments from one of its subscriber's accounts containing what they believed to be child pornography.

The Los Angeles Police Department, which was assigned to the case, traced the IP address associated with the account, Zack3737@aol.com, to Brinkin, a San Francisco resident, according to court records. Los Angeles police forwarded the case to San Francisco police.

San Francisco investigators say the account was registered to Brinkin, and that he paid for the e-mail service with his credit card.

Police provided two examples of e-mail messages from last year in which Zack3737 provides disturbing descriptions of the exploitive sexual acts.

The e-mail account also is linked to Yahoo discussion groups on sexual exploitation of young boys and girls, according to the search warrant.

Executing a search warrant Friday, police seized two laptops, a desk top computer, videos, a floppy disk and thumb drives from Brinkin's Waller Street home.

During his 22-year tenure at the Human Rights Commission, Brinkin was best known for championing equal rights for ? and lesbians. He helped craft San Francisco's groundbreaking Equal Benefits Ordinance, which became a national model for workplace equality.

Upon Brinkin's retirement, the Board of Supervisors approved a resolution declaring the week of Feb. 1, 2010, "Larry Brinkin Week" in San Francisco, saying his "dedication to advance the civil rights of all people has never stopped."

Former Supervisor Bevan Dufty who authored the board resolution, said Monday that he was shocked to learn of Brinkin's arrest. "I have admired and respected his work for the LGBT community," Dufty said. "I respect and am confident that there will be due process."

Brinkin did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

Rachel Gordon is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: rgordon@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelgordonsf