VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) – The man convicted of plotting to bomb students and teachers at Landstown High School in Virginia Beach was denied bond Thursday for child pornography charges.
Philip Bay was arrested in June on 20 counts of child pornography. He was arrested at the Virginia Beach Municipal Campus while police raided the townhome he shared with his mother on Saville Garden Way.
10 On Your Side’s Andy Fox was in court during the bond hearing and said Bay entered the courtroom looking at his mother, Lisa Bay, who was standing in the front before the judge. Philip Bay denies possessing the 20 alleged child pornography images
Lisa Bay then gave testimony on where she lives, and that if Philip was granted bond he would return to the family home in Virginia Beach.
The judge denied bond, thinking he was a danger to the public and he is a flight risk, but most importantly bond was denied for Philip based on his past record of the plot involving Landstown High School.
A jury convicted him in February 2011 on a total of 18 charges, including 12 charges involving explosives, four charges related to terrorism, and two weapons charges for possession of sawed-off shotguns.
Bay was then sentenced by a judge to a total of 68 years but with 56 years suspended, leaving him with 12 years to serve. He was then released in 2019 after serving eight years and was put on probation.
After the bond hearing, Bay’s attorney, Eric Korslund, gave the background on what led to Bay’s arrest.
“In this particular National Association for Exploited Children, they saw images in cyberspace if you will,” Korslund said. “I believe law enforcement executed a search warrant to further narrow it down to where these images are coming from or who has it. Slowly it got back to a cloud account with Mr. Bay’s name and that’s what led to his arrest.”
Korslund was co-council when Bay was tried for plotting to bomb students and teachers at Landsdown High School, and he is his attorney now.
“From the gate he denies it,” Korslund said. “He is having a difficult time. He served a lengthy penitentiary sentence, he has gotten back on his feet since his been released, and now he is back in jail, so he is not having a good time.”
The cloud is the internet where you can access images remotely. Something in the cloud means it’s stored on internet servers instead of your computer or hard drive,
“People can access other peoples’ cloud accounts,” Korslund said. “There is a lot of hacking on the internet, and a lot of stuff goes on in cyber space, so I am keeping an open mind at this point in time.”
During the search of Bay’s home police took two cell phones and a laptop.
“I can say with a straight face, I have not heard any evidence that he possesses these images on a particular device,” Korslund said, “that he was able to look at these images on a device. It all comes from cyber space and a cloud account.”
Korslund will argue there is no definitive connection between the 20 sexual images and Bay.
The Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office pointed out the 20 images on the cloud account is associated only with Bay’s phone number.
Korslund responded.
“It opens the door that other people may have access to this cloud account, so even though a cloud account is going to be associated with only one person, if other people have access to it other people can upload images download images and do all sorts of things,” Korslund said. “That is our position at this stage.”
Bay is scheduled to be back in court Aug. 24.
10 On Your Side’s Andy Fox will have more on this story starting on WAVY News 10 at 4 p.m.
