Facing four to seven years for possessing child pornography, former Glee star Mark Salling pleaded guilty.
Mark Salling committed suicide, however. A complicated act that may have royally screwed over a lot of victims.
Now, some may find it curious that Salling’s criminal case has been (posthumously) dismissed.
In a document obtained by The Blast, it is shown that the court has dismissed the child porn case against Mark Salling.
“For good cause shown, it is hereby ordered that: The government’s motion to dismiss the indictment pursuant to Rule 48 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is granted. The indictment in the above referenced case is dismissed without prejudice.”
Note that “without prejudice” means that a case can be brought before the court again. Though that’s unlikely — Salling is dead.
Prosecutors filed the motion to dismiss the case on Tuesday.
United States District Judge Otis D. Wright then signed the order on Wednesday.
This was basically just a formality. If Salling had waited until the case was closed, it wouldn’t be an issue. As it is, courts don’t try and convict the dead. That would be farcical.
The details of Mark Salling’s child porn charges were horrifying.
He was first turned in by a girlfriend, who apparently found “hundreds” of images of minors — the kinds of images that no one should have — on his computer.
Police investigated, and discovered that Salling had multiple devices containing horrifying, child pornography in both images and video.
The evidence against him, as presented in court, contained over 100,000 pages. Not all of those were photographs, but more than 50,000 of them were.
Those are a lot of victims and a lot of ruined childhoods.
A lot of ruined lives.
One fact from the case that will always haunt us is the knowledge that one of the videos in his possession was of a five-year-old girl performing a sex act, reportedly on Salling himself.
As we mentioned, Mark Salling’s suicide screwed over his victims.
Months before he ended his own life, Salling had agreed to pay restitution to some of his (identified) victims.
Reports claimed that each would have received $ 50,000. A later clarification reported that amounts would have varied according to factors such as therapy costs and other expenses.
While no one can imagine that Salling’s money could have changed the lives of every single victim in his stockpile of over 50,000 images, the restitution could have made some difference in the lives of some of those whom he personally victimized.
Despite the agreement, it had not yet been ordered by a judge, and could not go into effect without Salling.
In all likelihoods, these survivors will get nothing from Salling unless they sue his estate. And perhaps not even then.
Salling’s suicide is a complicated one.
Many would cheer at the death of someone who did so much harm in his life — and who could blame them?
However, applauding a suicide is … different than applauding an accidental death or even a murder, because people who struggle with suicidal depression may be impacted by such celebrations.
For those who struggle with suicidal thoughts on a regular basis, the topic of suicide is akin to an allergen. Just as most of us can eat peanuts without issue but they’re fatal to others, most of us can talk about the death of a very bad man, but others cannot.
Adding to the complexity, of course, is the knowledge that, in taking his own life, Mark Salling cheated these victims out of restitution. That money would never have compensated for ruined childhoods and damaged lives, but it might have helped.
Who’s to say, however, what was on Mark Salling’s mind at the time?
It’s very likely that he wasn’t thinking of them at all when he took his life.
That this wasn’t a final insult to people who likely suffered at the hands of many adult men, but just a way out of what was sure to be a miserable prison experience.
Or perhaps it was a way out of his own self-loathing, if that’s truly how he was feeling about his crimes.
But now Salling is gone. Now his case is dismissed.
