Priest caught with child porn left his nude photos on Missouri church printer, feds say
A priest left nude photos of himself on a church printer in Missouri, prompting an internal investigation into the man’s electronic devices, according to federal authorities.
While a private information technology company in St. Louis was reviewing one of the church-provided devices, it found 12 videos of minors engaging in sexual activity, authorities said. The IT company notified the church, and the FBI was asked to investigate.
The FBI received a search warrant on May 25, 2021, about a week after the naked photos were found on the printer, authorities said. Investigators examined 10 of the man’s devices and found more than 6,000 images depicting child sexual abuse, including two graphic PowerPoint presentations.
James T. Beighlie, now retired from the Congregation of the Mission in St. Louis, was sentenced to prison on Jan. 10 after pleading guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
The defense attorney representing Beighlie, 72, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News on Jan. 11. McClatchy News also reached out to the Congregation of the Mission and was awaiting a response.
The two PowerPoint slideshows that Beighlie created contained thousands of slides filled with child erotica, according to the priest’s plea agreement signed in October. The male and female children were nude in the images, authorities said.
The presentations were created in 2009, revised over 200 times and last accessed in 2015, according to the plea agreement.
Investigators said they also found child pornography photos and videos on other devices, including Beighlie’s thumb drives.
The priest admitted to possessing child porn from the internet between May 2008 and May 2021, according to court records.
“It’s depressing and sickening to know that people were looking at images and videos of my online sexual abuse when I was a little girl and that they were getting pleasure from it – my abuse,” a child wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp, according to the news release.
Beighlie is ordered to spend five years in prison, pay $4,750 in restitution to an affected child and pay $22,000 in special assessments that will be divided among other victims. Following his prison sentence, he’ll be on supervised release for the rest of his life.
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