A church deacon was arrested in Baltimore this weekend after police found “numerous files of child pornography” in his Internet storage locker.
William Steven Albaugh, 67, a longtime deacon at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Northeast Baltimore, was arrested Friday morning at 7:45am during a police investigation at his home. Police reported that they found the sexualized images of children when they logged into his Verizon Online account, a cloud-storage facility that functions like an Internet hard drive.
That Verizon Online account is actually the reason why Albaugh got caught: Verizon, “required by law to report any facts or circumstances reported to us or that we discover from which is appears there may be a violation of the child pornography laws,” noticed the activity and notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who in turn told local authorities.
Albaugh told police that he’s been a viewer of child pornography since the 1970s, when he would go to porn shops around Baltimore to peek at illegal photos. Arrest reports state that Albaugh denies ever having touched a child, and that none of the children at St. Joseph’s Church were victims.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore released a statement this weekend announcing that Albaugh has been suspended from the church.
“Neither the parish nor the Archdiocese has received any prior allegations againstMr. Albaugh, who successfully fulfilled all of the child & youth protection requirements of the Archdiocese, including a criminal history screening,” the statement said.
Albaugh was released from a Baltimore county jail on $75,000 bond. Police report that the investigation is continuing.
Photo via Baltimore County Police