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THE criminal prosecution of a hard-core pornographer turned into a personal trial for the presiding judge, who called for an investigation on Thursday into his own conduct over lewd photos and videos stored on his family's publicly accessible Website.

Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th United States Circuit Court of Appeals, asked an ethics panel of the court to initiate proceedings after the disclosure about his trove of sexually explicit material.

"I will cooperate fully in any investigation," Kozinski said in a statement.

Kozinski, 57, left the court on Wednesday without comment after suspending the trial of Ira Isaacs, who is charged with obscenity for selling movies depicting bestiality and fetishes involving feces and urination. The delay until Monday will give lawyers time to consider whether to ask for Kozinski to step down from the case.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Kozinski had posted sexual material on his personal Website and then blocked access after being interviewed about it on Tuesday evening. He told the Times he was responsible for posting at least some of the images and videos.

The computerized cache included a picture of two nude women on all fours painted to look like Holstein dairy cows, images of masturbation, a video of a man being pursued by a sexually aroused donkey and a slide show featuring a striptease with a transsexual.

"If you found this kind of thing in your kid's bedroom you would wash your kid's mouth out with soap. We expect more from a judge," said Laurie Levenson, a former prosecutor and law professor at Loyola University Law School. "Character counts for judges because they have so much power and affect so many people's lives."