News Photo by Julie Riddle Scott Henning confers with his attorney before a hearing in Alpena’s 88th District Court on Thursday.

ALPENA — Being in the same house as child pornography isn’t the same thing as possessing it, a defense attorney argued in a hearing on Thursday for Scott Henning, of Hubbard Lake.

Henning is accused of possessing child porn after police found photos of prepubescent and teenage children on a computer seized during a raid of his residence, where he is accused of operating a drug lab.

Defense attorney Alan Curtis argued the child porn charges should be dropped because, after multiple witnesses testified about the contents of the computer, no evidence had been offered that Henning knew about or downloaded the photos.

Alpena County District Judge Thomas LaCross will decide in the next week whether Henning’s case should continue toward trial.

Henning was arrested in August after the Huron Undercover Narcotics Team aided the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in tracking a package sent to Henning from the Netherlands. The package was later discovered to contain illegal drugs, including about 1,200 doses of ecstasy, according to police reports.

During a raid of Henning’s home, police discovered an apparent hallucinogenic mushroom lab in Henning’s bedroom. Henning currently faces drug charges in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court.

During the raid, detectives seized electronic devices, including Henning’s personal cell phone and a desktop computer.

That computer, on which the child porn was found, wasn’t in Henning’s bedroom and was sometimes used by his grandmother, in whose house Henning lived at the time of his arrest, according to police testimony.

On the witness stand on Thursday, Henning’s grandmother, Joann Reinholz, invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to testify against herself when asked how she used the computer, following the advice of her attorney.

According to Reinholz, the computer was always unlocked and accessible to the home’s frequent visitors — who were just as likely as Henning to have downloaded them, according to Curtis.

According to police testimony elicited by Alpena County Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski, Henning said in a social media post that he knows how to access the dark web — a part of the internet hidden from regular search engines and often used to hide illegal activity — though no evidence of his doing so existed on his cell phone, according to police testimony.

LaCross said he will review his notes and decide within about a week whether to bind Henning over to Circuit Court.

Henning is a former custodian at Alpena Public Schools.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.