NORTHAMPTON — After a bail hearing Monday afternoon, Hampshire Superior Court Judge Charles Groce III is considering whether to set bail for the Northampton man who spent six years on the lam in Ecuador after being charged with possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Northampton Police began investigating Jude Demeis, 55, in 2019 after he allegedly shared a video containing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on social media. He was charged with three counts of possessing CSAM, and one count of posing or exhibiting a child in a state of nudity following a Hampshire County grand jury decision in September 2019, but fled the jurisdiction after an arrest warrant was issued in 2020.
Demeis pleaded not guilty in Hampshire Superior Court on Aug. 21 after he was escorted from Ecuador to Boston by U.S. marshals the day prior.
Appearing before the court again on Monday, Assistant District Attorney Kyle Stublen, of the DA’s Child Abuse Unit, argued that Demeis’ previous move to Ecuador while he was being investigated demonstrated a flight risk. He urged Groce to hold Demeis without bail, or set his bail at $1 million.
“After the defendant’s search warrant was executed at his house for child sexual abuse material in April of 2019, within two months of that date, the defendant had sold his house for below what he purchased it for and then left the jurisdiction of not only the Commonwealth of Massachusetts but the United States of America,” Stublen said. “The commonwealth still believes he is a significant flight risk.”
Stublen went on to argue that Demeis now has fewer ties to Northampton than he did when he moved to Ecuador in 2019, making him more likely to flee if released on bail.
Demeis’s attorney Brad Bailey countered the state’s claim that his client, a Massachusetts native and UMass Amherst graduate, did not have sufficient ties to the community. He directed the defendant’s parents — two Massachusetts residents — to stand before the court.
Bailey said Demeis had not been arrested or charged the day his home was searched in April 2019 and sold his home in June 2019 before he was indicted in September of that year.
“[Demeis] was somebody who traveled. He did go to Ecuador at a time when there were no flight restrictions, nothing placed on him whatsoever,” Bailey said. “He was not made aware of any warrant against him until November of 2019, when he found out about the warrant because Massachusetts State Police traveled to his parents’ home in Needham and informed them.”
Explaining that his client’s charges, while serious, were non-violent in nature, Bailey argued that Demeis be released on $250,000 bail to home confinement and GPS monitoring.
In 2020, Massachusetts State Police added Demeis to its Most Wanted list. The case went national in 2021 when Demeis’ photo was featured on the Investigation Discovery program “In Pursuit with John Walsh,” a show that works to track down fugitives and missing children. The Northampton man was the subject of one of the show’s “15 Seconds of Shame” segments.
Demeis was located in Ecuador earlier this year through a joint effort between the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section (VFAS) and the FBI, which worked alongside Ecuadorian authorities to arrest him.
Following Bailey’s argument, Stublem maintained that the state views the defendant as a flight risk. The parties scheduled a pre-trial conference date for Oct. 28.
Groce took the bail arguments under advisement and said he expects to issue a decision within a week.
