C;T ATE

OF SOUTH CARn T 1l'-T A.

COUNTY OF YORK
STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA,
vs.
CHRISTIAN HINE,
DEFENDANT.

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P.T'rEP rnrrnT OT' GENEILA.L SESSIONS

INDICTMENT NOS.: 2016GS4600303-00314

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DEFENDANT CHRISTIAN HINE'S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM

On August 22, 2016, the Defendant, Christian Hine, will appear before this Court on
charges of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor (Possession of child pornography). We ask this
Honorable Court to craft a sentence that takes into account Christian's exceptional qualities, the
uncharacteristic nature of his offense, and the recognition that Christian has faced his addiction
and is building a stable and successful life with intensive support from his community.
I.

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STATEMENT OF FACTS

Christian Hine is an outstanding young man, from a devoted family. His descent into
depression and pornography abuse was as swift as it is tragic. In early 2015, Christian was
employed as a business partner at New Majority Media, LLC, a news and opinion website. With
his partner providing local political news coverage, Christian contributed opinion pieces and
built the brand via his activist group participation. The website received the support of alII 0
WBT radio personality and Christian frequently appeared "on air" to discuss various topics. New
Majority Media also achieved "news partner" status with the Charlotte Observer which would
frequently link to their articles. During this same time period, Christian's primary employment
was delivering mail to financial institutions as an independent contractor. His primary

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Chase and Transcentra. His future seemed bright. However, unbeknownst to his business
partners, his friends, and his mother, Christian had begun "self-medicating" his symptoms of
depression with pornography. Without the careful oversight of a medical professional, and no
one to speak with due to the stigma associated with internet pornography, Christian quickly
became addicted to pornography.
On June 24, 2015, state law enforcement officials knocked on his door with a warrant to
search his electronics. Christian accommodated law enforcement's requests and directed them to
all of his computers, tablets and electronics. After this encounter in June 2015, Christian went to
his family with the information that his and their lives were about to be seriously impacted. He
informed them both of what had happened, and what he had hid throughout the past few years.
Although shocked and disappointed, his family has been emotionally supportive throughout the
pendency of the investigation and charges.
Christian has now become disassociated from New Majority Media and put any job
search on hold as he felt it dishonest to seek new work with the pending charges and uncertainty
about his future. He has continued his work as an independent contractor, albeit on a limited
basis. Over the past year and a half, he has also relied on the kindness and support of his friends
and mother, supplementing the lost income by becoming a driver for UBER.
It is difficult to understand how Christian ended up in such a terrible place. He was born

in an intact and supportive family in Wolfeboro,

~ew

Hampshire to Dr. Lawrence Hine and

Marian Hine. He was close with both parents until his father's passing in 2010. As a child, the
family moved from ~ew Hampshire, to New York, to Florida, to South Carolina. Christian
believes that the diversity of environments, schools and income levels helped him later in life to

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 and emnathizc with ncoplc from all walks of fife
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As a youth, Christian was involved in both the Boy Scouts and in the Baptist Church
equivalent, AW ANA. He attended several mission trips as a member of his church youth group,
including running a Vacation Bible School for underprivileged children in Hilton Head,

sc.

Christian was a model student. Academically gifted in early childhood, he excelled in
school. He graduated in the top 10% of both his high school and college classes. In college he
was a member of the Golden Key National Honor Society, Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society, Beta
Gamma Sigma Business Honor Society, and was in the inaugural class of the Honors Program
for Business at UNC Charlotte. The latter allowed Christian to participate in a study abroad
program at the University of Wales, Swansea during his junior year.
Christian graduated with honors from UNC Charlotte in 1999 with a Business
Management degree and a Political Science minor. It was politics that Christian had a true
passion for and continued to pursue after graduation.
After college, he joined with others in 2000 to resurrect the Mecklenburg County
(Charlotte, NC) Young Republicans, eventually becoming its Chairman in 2003. He was also
appointed as the Executive Director of the entire NC Federation of Young Republicans. Shortly
thereafter, he teamed with a former member of the Charlotte City Council to form an action
committee called Charlotteans Opposed to Sports Taxes. The group defeated the Charlotte Arena
referendum through a vigorous grassroots campaign. Throughout the following years, Christian
continued to offer his time and energy to many candidates for elected positions in and around
Charlotte. In 2012, he was the Mecklenburg County Chairman for NC Lt. Governor Dan Forest,
as well as the co-designer of the entire campaign's successful grassroots strategy. During this
time period, Christian also involved himself in many other organizations as a volunteer, without

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 . pay > while. he> maintair.ed his full time emplc.ymcnt. He al~o offered website de-sIgn si.:prices fQr": .

political candidates and non-profit organizations as a source of additional income.
However, unbeknownst to his family and friends, in the fall of 2004, Christian's
depression and anxiety began to increase when his girlfriend of 4 Y2 years and soon to be fiance
left him unexpectedly over the holidays. To further complicate matters, it was soon apparent that
she was in a relationship with one of his business partners, a close personal friend. Suddenly
losing these relationships was hard enough, but losing his source of income and a group of
friends at the same time sent him on a dO\\-TIward spiral. Throughout the ensuing years, despite
all of his involvement and activities, he was unable to develop any other romantic relationships.
With each time another relationship failed to go forward, the depression and loneliness
compounded. He hid this well from all but his closest friends.
Christian's mother was concerned about periods of depression in his life. In 2008, at her
urging, Christian visited a counselor for approximately three months. Unfortunately, those
sessions did not address the core problems in Christian's life and were discontinued.
This and many other factors resulted in an addiction to pornography, which he attempted
to use to fill the void in his life. The sources that Christian found to view pornography included
the file sharing program E-Mule, which he discovered opened up a world where nearly any philia
could be searched and explored. Unfortunately, after some period of time, he began to search
images of teens, as opposed to adults. The reasons why are still being discovered and will be
worked out in future therapy sessions.
II.

RECOVERY AND TREATMENT

Since that day in June 2015 when the police came to his home, Christian has undertaken
a difficult, but successfJI journey towards mental health and rehabilitation. In September of

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 ·2015, Clwi3tian began

s~d!lg;Dr.

David \\'heeler,:- a psychologist in Cha!lottevvitb \vlvm'!.he

maintained a regular appointment schedule for four months. While Dr. Wheeler was able to help
with Christian's depression and anxiety, he was self admittedly not the best suited to discuss the
attraction issues specifically.
In December, Christian found Dr. Terri Watters, another Charlotte psychologist, with
whom he could discuss these troubling things. He was under her regular care until April of 2016,
when she went on maternity leave.

Rather than seek yet another doctor and beginning the

relationship building process all over again, Christian intends to maintain his relationship with
Dr. Watters and resume regular therapy when she returns to work. These sessions with Drs.
Wheeler and Watters taught Christian that he needed to live in a supportive, safe environment.
With the advice of his counselors, he remained in his community.
Recently, at the request of counsel, Christian was evaluated by Dr. Donna Schwartz­
Watts who diagnosed Christian with two previously unrecognized issues, autistic spectrum
disorder and depression. According to Dr. Watts, the spectrum disorder has prevented Christian
from socializing as much as most men his age. She also attributes a large degree of emotional
trauma to the disruption of his 4 12 year relationship years ago. Sadly, after that episode in his
life, and with limited social skills to find someone, an outlet for his sexuality became the
computer. Like many others before him, Christian's spiral into the world of internet pornography
led him to stumble upon deviant and illegal sexual interests he did not know existed.
Dr. Watts also determined that there is no evidence of antisocial personality disorder. She
concluded that based on her evaluation that he would, to a high degree of medical certainty,
successfully follow any guidelines imposed by the court.
Additionally, at the request of counsel, on June 3, 2016, Christian successfully completed

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 .,

and interpreted numerous peer-reviewed, published psychological and psychosexual instruments.
He also scored various peer-reviewed, published quantitative measures of current sexual
recidivism risk. Finally, he calculated measures of recidivism for non-sexual crimes, that is,
Christian's risk of probation violation for general criminal offenses. As will be discussed in more
detail later in this memo, Dr. McKee's opinion, based on the testing described above, is that
Christian had very low risk scores on the sexual recidivism scales and therefore no empirical or
quantitative grounds exists that would preclude a probationary sentence.
Christian takes full responsibility for his addiction and his crimes. He understands that he
has permanently affected his future and he knows that his life is changed forever. His felony
convictions will follow him forever, as will his lifetime reporting requirement, affecting his
opportunities and career choices. However, he also believes that he is on the right path to being
a productive citizen. He has no intention of ever returning to pornography to ease his depression
and anxiety. He hopes to make amends for his crime by working hard in his community, and
dedicating himself to the community where he will work.
He asks that this Honorable Court consider the nature of his pornography addiction, his
successful rehabilitation, the aberrant nature of his crime, and the futility of imprisonment in his
situation. And, he suggests that a house arrest sentence would be consistent with the purposes of
South Carolina's Criminal Code of Laws.

III.

DISCUSSION

The U.S. Supreme Court has observed that our criminal justice system strives "to
consider every convicted person as an individual and every case as a unique study in the human
failings that sometimes mitigate, sometimes magnify, the crime and the punishment to ensure."

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