Constable held by feds without bail
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
Despite a family offer of $4.5 million in surety, a federal court judge ruled last Friday that William H. Constable of Nantucket, charged with child pornography, be held without bail for the foreseeable future.

Constable, 53, was first arrested in Barnstable on Oct. 20 when hotel employees found a camera belonging to him containing images of sex with children.

Authorities reviewed the camera and found at least 40 digital video clips of children engaged in sexual acts, including several videos of a prepubescent girl between the ages of six to eight engaged in sexual intercourse with an adult male. In addition, Constable is depicted in at least several of the videos, one of which shows him raping a screaming pre-pubescent female child.

A search of his Madaket home turned up many more pornographic materials depicting him and others engaged in sexual acts with children. While Constable subsequently posted $25,000 bail and was released by a Nantucket judge on Oct. 23, on Thursday, Oct. 25 he was taken into custody again by federal authorities who charged him with producing child pornography outside the United States and transporting it into this country.

Constable, a self-employed builder on Nantucket, was previously scheduled for a pre-trial hearing in Nantucket District Court on Monday, Oct. 29 but the date was continued to Dec. 10. According to a report by the Boston Herald, last Friday Boston federal court judge Marianne Bowler ordered Constable held without bail pending a future decision to release him or not prior to his trial. Her ruling came after Constable and his three sisters offered $4.5 million in Nantucket property as surety for his release.

It is believed that the materials seized from Constable were all produced in Asian countries. According to the Herald report, last Thursday an FBI agent testified in the Boston court that Constable had admitted that he sexually assaulted about 30 children during trips to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

If convicted, Constable faces a minimum prison sentence of 15 years and a maximum term of 30 years, a fine of up to $250,000 and supervised release lasting anywhere from five years to the

rest of his life. I