THE BEAST

Inquisition frontman Jason Weirbach, a.k.a. “Dagon,” plead guilty to child pornography charges in 2009, according to official documents from the Superior Court of Washington for Snohomish County.

The documents, which are a matter of public record, state that NCMEC (the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) became aware of an account uploading sexually explicit photographs of “young females in their early teens or pre-teens” to the photo-sharing website Photobucket in November of 2006. After tracing the uploader’s I.P. address and determining its jurisdiction, NCMEC contacted the Everett Police Department, who subsequently launched an investigation.

Although the user name for the Photobucket account suggested its owner was a woman, that investigation eventually led police to Weirbach. In late 2007, Detective Karen Kowalchyk visited Weirbach and his wife at their home. While Weirbach was out of the room, his wife admitted that they were having marital problems, that Weirbach liked for her to dress up as a young girl when they had sex, and that she was concerned he might be looking at child pornography online; while his wife was out of the room, Weirbach admitted that the Photobucket images were his, and that he had pretended to be a lesbian while obtaining them online. Weirbach claimed that he had only ever looked at the images “out of curiosity.”

Inquistion’s Jason “Dagon” Weirbach has sent the below statement to MetalSucks. The statement is in response to the story they ran in which they reported that “Weirbach plead guilty to Unlawful Display of Sexually Explicit Material and Obstructing a Law Enforcement Officer.”

They present Weirbach’s statement without commentary below. However, there are some aspects of his statement that they feel require clarification on our part. Their additional commentary appears below Weirbach’s statement.

“Feel free to publish my side of the story.

“I never plead guilty to the initial charges, had I done that the trial would have immediately come to a closing. The title in your article is incorrect.

“Jason

“To all fans, supporters and close ones, I would like to clarify some horrific misinformation generated by the webzine MetalSucks of a personal matter of mine in 2007: First you must take into account, everything MetalSucks published is taken from court documents that state charges and accusations rather than what was proven or admitted in 2007. Second, I never plead guilty to the charges and the original charges were dropped after the courts examined all evidence. I am not a sex offender, and I was absolutely innocent of all charges. The plea bargain was something the prosecutor insisted on and for the defense was the best option to end a lengthy legal process. Also, the background check webpage circulating is not entirely correct, it is definitely not showing what the Police background check would show you.

“With my fullest respect to you, please read my statement MetalSucks had told me they would publish:

“I made a very unwise choice of actions in 2007 which got me into some legal problems. After the investigation was conducted, a year and a half later after the initial charges, the original charges brought against me were dropped and a plea deal was presented to me. The investigation determined I did not have anything that fell under the original charge.

“The police report suggested I had deleted and obstructed evidence which I deny to have done, however the obstruction charge was still part of the plea deal as was the other charge mentioned in this article. That second charge is related to viewing pornography in a public area, and again was taken as part of the plea deal. To be clear, I have no sex crimes, this did not involve any other person other than myself and I have moved forward since 2009 while having complied with all aspects of the law.

“I wish to remain focused on my music and my absolute dedication to the art of Black Metal. Despite any personal views and judgements the followers and supporters of our music may have, I am a somewhat private person and have never cared for destructive sensationalism and keeping what I feel is private, private.

“I hope my level of transparency is understood and I thank you, as always for having been so supportive of Inquisition.

“Dagon”

MetalSucks response Below:

Regarding several of Weirbach’s claims:

1. “The title in your article is incorrect.”

Our headline specifically says that the charges to which Weirbach plead guilty were “related” to child pornography. They were. There would have been no investigation if not for the tracing of child pornography to Weirbach’s IP address.

2. “I never plead guilty to the charges.”

It’s not clear what he means when he says “I never plead guilty” to the charges, because that’s only true of the initial charge, Possession of Depictions of a Minor Engaged in Sexually Explicit Conduct. He absolutely plead guilty to charges of Unlawful Display of Sexually Explicit Material and Obstructing a Law Enforcement Officer, as demonstrated by the documentation below.

3. “[P]lease read my statement MetalSucks had told me they would publish.”

We believe Weirbach is referring to our request for a comment yesterday morning from Inquistion’s now-former label, Season of Mist. At that time, we told Season of Mist we’d be running the story this morning, and gave them twenty-four hours to comment. Their response said simply that they no longer worked with Inquistion. Had we been made aware of Weirbach’s statement at any point prior to publication, we would have included it in the original article. We were not given the statement until Weirbach sent it to us directly at 11:59 a.m. EDT today.

4. “I am not a sex offender.”

See documentation here . While it’s worth noting that Weirbach may not be on a registry of sex offenders, the state of Washington requires no such registry for this categorization. Via MetalSucks

Season Of Mist also dropped the band from the label!

Consequently, Weirbach’s computer was subpoenaed, and he was ordered to turn in the machine. According to the report, investigators found that “efforts had been made to sanitize/clean out” as many as 2,000 files after Detective Kowalchyk had left his home. Some of these files were recoverable, and proved to be photos of Weirbach and his wife, Inquisition, and more child pornography, involving both young girls and boys. Enough of the latter category existed to fill four “CDs/DVD’s” [sic] of “digital and/or video images.”

Weirbach was charged with Possession of Depictions of a Minor Engaged in Sexually Explicit Conduct in December of 2008; in June of 2009, his attorney was able to strike a bargain with prosecutors, whereupon Weirbach plead guilty to Unlawful Display of Sexually Explicit Material and Obstructing a Law Enforcement Officer. In exchange, the prosecutor recommended thirty days in jail with credit for time already served, roughly $1,000 in fines, and two years of probation, which included limited access to the Internet as well as counseling.

A sex offender treatment report filed in September of 2011 noted that although his marriage continued to be strained, Weirbach “appears sincere in his efforts not to return to his deviant lifestyle” and that his “assessment of risk to the community is considered ‘Low.'”

Weirbach, who was charged with Fourth Degree Assault and Third Degree Malicious Mischief in February of 2006, has been at the center of controversy in the past as the result of accusations that he is involved in Nazism and/or white supremacy. These allegations stem primarily from another Weirbach project, 88MM, the name of which denotes both a Nazi gun and the phrase “Heil Hitler.” 88MM’s track “14 Showerheads, 1 Gas Tight Door” appeared on a compilation entitled Declaration of Anti-Semetic Terror [sic], which included an image of Weirbach posing with a swastika flag.

Images Courtesy Of MetalSucks.net