News Photo by Julie Riddle Alpena County Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski and defendant Scott Henning listen virtually as attorney Alan Curtis argues a point in the 26th Circuit Court on Monday.

ALPENA — Witness testimony for the prosecution failed to connect a Hubbard Lake man to child pornography found on a computer where he lived, an Alpena judge said on Monday, sending Scott Henning back to a lower court to have his case reexamined.

Henning was charged with possession of child pornography after 134 illicit images were found on a computer seized when police raided an alleged drug lab in his bedroom, Judge Ed Black said.

The computer was in another room of the house, where Henning had lived since late 2019 after staying there for a time in 2015 or 2016, according to Black.

A computer analyst at Henning’s preliminary examination in the 88th District Court said digital time and date information retrieved from the computer showed photo downloads before 2015. However, the prosecution never offered evidence that Henning was in the house before 2015, even for a visit, Black said.

At a preliminary examination, a judge decides if there is enough evidence for a case to continue to trial.

According to Black, who reviewed a transcript of the exam in response to a motion by attorney Alan Curtis, the prosecution also failed to explain a connection between the photos and the dark web — a part of the internet often used to conduct illegal activity, which Henning claimed to be able to access — and offered no testimony explaining the lack of digital data connected to most of the photos.

Black remanded the child porn charge back to District Court, where Judge Thomas LaCross will have to review the evidence against Henning and decide whether to request more testimony. If the prosecution can’t more conclusively connect Henning to the computer, the child pornography charge against him will have to be dropped, Black said.

Black declined to dismiss the charge himself, saying that, if he did so, he guessed the prosecution would reissue charges and start the process over.

Alpena County Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski said Black’s guess was correct.