Brian Booth

Brian Booth testified for the prosecution on Day 22 and Day 23 as an FBI forensic examiner, authenticating digital reports and linking photographs to embedded dates and camera serial numbers. He explained write-blocked copying, MD5 verification, and recovery of deleted images from a Western Digital hard drive. His testimony supplied technical evidence about photograph chronology and camera associations, rather than identifying who took or viewed the images.

On direct examination, Booth read EXIF dates from October through December 2005 and described matching camera serial numbers across examined photographs. He favored embedded EXIF dates over conflicting file-system timestamps. The court provisionally overruled a defense objection to adult photographs, which prosecutors argued helped establish chronology and an alleged course of conduct. On Day 23, photographs in Government Exhibits 518-A through 518-U and EXIF data in Government Exhibit 504-B were admitted without objection; Booth identified November 2 and November 24, 2005 dates.

Cross-examination focused on evidence handling and the limits of those conclusions. Booth said the camera and card arrived in unsealed packaging, he could not power on the camera, and an unavailable computer would have helped reconstruct connections and transfers. He acknowledged inaccurate file-system creation dates and apparent changes to card access dates during FBI possession. He did not know who accessed the card on September 19, 2018, cautioned that access did not necessarily mean viewing, and could not identify users or photographers. Asked about Raniere's knowledge of the images, he said he did not know what Raniere knew.

On redirect, Booth emphasized the greater reliability of embedded EXIF data, reported no attempted EXIF manipulation on the drive, and compared image dates with folder and Photoshop album-file dates. On recross, he agreed that EXIF can be altered and limited his knowledge of an earlier examiner's camera work. Further redirect clarified that the examined images came from a Canon camera, not a social-media company. The court then excused him.