American Baptist pastor of Texas pleads guilty to possession of child sex abuse images

David Lloyd Walther admitted downloading the materials to a computer at Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock, where he was pastor before his arrest in November.

By Edward Era Barbacena 

A Texas pastor pleaded guilty to an enhanced charge of possession of child sex abuse images after he admitted having downloaded some of the materials at his church, according to federal prosecutors and court documents.

David Lloyd Walther, 57, "knowingly searched for, downloaded, distributed and possessed" child sex abuse images, some of which depicted prepubescent minors, on a peer-to-peer file sharing network while he was the pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock, a city 18 miles north of Austin, the U.S. attorney's office for Western Texas 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 sex abuse material, the U.S. attorney's office said.

He was released on home detention with GPS monitoring on Nov. 17 and was prohibited from using any computers or having any contact with minors.