Fallen Florida Firefighter's Photo Falsely Linked to Molesting Story
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VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. --
A Volusia County firefighter was killed in a training accident. Now his widow says his memory is being disgraced by a website linking his picture to a horrible story.
The story is about an Australian firefighter accused of molesting children. But instead of using the suspect's picture, a website used a picture of John Curry, who died in Volusia County in 2007.
Curry's widow is trying to find a way to take his picture down, but she hasn't been able to track down the blogger, because there is not enough information on his website. Eyewitness News found out the blogger lives in Australia and she may have a hard time getting his picture taken down.
Volusia County firefighter John Curry died almost two years ago in a training accident when a tree fell on top of him. Since then, his photo has popped up on the Internet in various news articles, but two weeks ago his widow, Kristen Curry, found his picture linked to a terrible story.
“To link such a good man, honorable man, to pornography and rape is just awful,” she said.
A blogger in Australia posted a news article about a firefighter who was sentenced to 20 years for selling pornographic pictures of his daughter and granddaughter and for some reason used Curry's picture.
“I immediately tried to figure out how to figure this out,” she said.
Eyewitness News spoke to First Amendment attorney Derek Brett and asked him what, if any, rights Curry had. He said it doesn't rise to the level of defamation and, if the photo is not copyrighted, she can't do much.
“It’s not right, but it’s not legally wrong. But it’s unfortunate. The only other thing that can happen is if this goes away over time,” he said.
Eyewitness News found out Google owns the website and contacted their headquarters. Google said it contacted the blogger as a courtesy and expressed Curry's concern.
Google will only take the photo down if there's a court order, a copyright problem or if the blogger violated any content rules. Google checked and there are no content violations.
Curry's attorney said he's looking into the situation and hopes something can be done. The blogger did have a disclaimer underneath the picture and said Curry was not the same man in the story.
Eyewitness News was unable to get a hold of the blogger because Google would not release his personal information without a court order.
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