Hard Drive in the Hoosegow

"If they arrested every male who looks at pictures of naked women, there would be no free men left in our society," says attorney Sandy Troy, who's working pro bono in defense of singer/songwriter John Pertle. The 36-year-old front man of Johnny Love Sound was arrested last week on 37 counts of possession of child pornography. (His band has played the Casbah, Lestat's, and the Triple Crown Pub on Adams Avenue.) After his bail was reduced from $370,000 to $10,000, Pertle got out of jail last Saturday.

"He's a good person with a clean record who pays child support for two young children," says Troy. Although Pertle is looking at a maximum of 27 years, Troy says he is confident an agreement can be worked out at a pretrial readiness conference with prosecutors. Troy says authorities alleged Pertle possessed images of young females on his computer hard drive.

"He never spent or made money on those images," says Troy. "Many of those photos he is alleged to have possessed are readily available for sale at certain stores in town. Yet he is being charged with a crime.... They confiscated his computer and as part of his release the judge ordered he have no contact with computers."