A Texas pastor has pleaded guilty to a felony count of possession of child sexual abuse images after admitting he downloaded some of the material at his church, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas and court documents. .
David Lloyd Walther, 57, “knowingly searched for, downloaded, distributed and possessed” child sexual abuse images, some of which depicted pre-adolescent minors, on a peer-to-peer file-sharing network while pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Round. Rock, a city 18 miles north of Austin, the US Attorney’s Office said Thursday.
Walther was arrested Nov. 9 after a search of his home and car turned up two large computer hard drives with more than 100,000 images and more than 5,000 videos of child sexual abuse material, the US Attorney’s Office said. .
He was released under house arrest with GPS monitoring on November 17 and prohibited from using any computer or having contact with minors.
He pleaded guilty in Texas Western District Court on Tuesday, court records show.
Walther could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 if convicted, the US Attorney’s Office said.
It was not immediately clear when he would be sentenced. A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office said a sentencing date had not yet been scheduled.
Walther’s attorneys and representatives for Faith Baptist Church also could not immediately be reached Monday.
Court documents outlining the disturbing allegations indicate that Walther downloaded some of the materials onto a computer while he was at the church. The complaint alleges that he also downloaded other child sexual abuse materials onto a computer at his residence in Georgetown, a city about 10 miles north of Round Rock.
When investigators searched Walther’s residence after obtaining federal search warrants, he allegedly admitted, among other things, “that he had an addiction to pornography and that he often went through cycles of downloading and viewing pornography that depicted both adults and adults.” to minors,” but did not know he was sharing the child sexual abuse files on the peer-to-peer network, according to the criminal complaint.
Walther also allegedly admitted that he would “download child pornography files, but would often feel guilty and go through a file ‘purge’, meaning he would delete the images and associated files, because he knew it was wrong,” adding that the He last deleted those files on November 8, the night before authorities issued the search warrants, according to the complaint. He apologized for his actions, the complaint says.
In a statement Walther filed with the court the day after his arrest, he wrote that he was “ashamed and disgusted by my actions and behavior” and considers himself a pedophile. He wrote that he estimates that he first saw images of child sexual abuse when he was 10 years old and that he began accessing that material regularly about eight years before his arrest.
He also appeared to back his own arrest: “If there is no tried and accepted method to help with my addiction to child pornography, then I should be cut off from society forever,” Walther wrote.
Walther also filed a statement on November 10 admitting that he had been “grooming” an unidentified minor or minors “for future sexual conduct or activity.”
