Sarah Wiedenheft, the anime voice actress for Tohru in the Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid English dub, publicly came forward to ask for help for her brother, Brad Widenheft. Sarah says her brother was “charged for four counts (videos) of child pornography on his hard drive.” But the Dragon Maid anime VA believes Brad to be “innocent” since the “hard drive initially belonged to someone else.”

Sarah also believes it’s possible the videos in question may have been picked up via an unnamed Peer-To-Peer (P2P) sharing website or program, a “super, super sketchy website like worse than LimeWire.”

“My brother was never the brightest bulb in the box and so if there’s anything he’s guilty of, it would, unfortunately, be for torrenting/pirating movies/music and what have you. I believe in my brother’s innocence and I do not think [the police have] collected enough evidence, personally,” she explained on Twitter. “Because this program is all they based his report on. No other sites? No Google? No way. If he were that kind of person, he’d have a whole lot more stashed away. And not just on his computer. They didn’t go into detail about the ‘sharing’ he’d done on the P2P, either.”

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The Dragon Maid voice actress says she watched Brad initially build the computer himself using spare parts during Christmas 2018. The hard drive containing the videos was allegedly sold online and was used, not new.

“I think [the hard drive’s seller] was someone online but I honestly don’t know and can’t ask,” she said.

Sarah was also asked by Twitter followers why her brother did not wipe the hard drive.

“Unfortunately, even if you delete something it’ll remain on the hard drive/the police will have already seen it was on your computer,” Sarah responded. “He also will not talk to the police for obvious reasons.”

Sarah came forward publicly with her brother’s story because she is seeking help for her brother. The family initially created a GoFundMe fundraiser so Brad can hire a lawyer instead of using a public defender.

“True fact in America you need a good lawyer even if you’re innocent. Under the law you’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty,” the GoFundMe page states. “Public defenders have too many caseloads to spend any amount of time on an individual case. So they will look at the case 10 minutes before entering court or even have the defendant agree to a lousy plea deal that’s not really in the person’s best interest in order to move on to the next case.”

However, Sarah says GoFundMe took the fundraiser page down “because it goes against their policies.” Instead, the family has set up a Paypal fundraiser.

https://twitter.com/SarahWiedenheft/status/1097768830523400192

Besides being the voice of the Dragon Maid Tohru, Sarah Wiedenheft has played a variety of supporting roles, including in My Hero Academia and Dragon Ball Super. She’s also played main roles like Popuko in Pop Team Epic, Lily in Zombieland Saga, and Phos in Land of the Lustrous (Houseki no Kuni). It’s likely that Sarah will reprise her role in the potential English dub of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid Season 2, which was recently confirmed to be in production.