Texas Pastor Pleads Guilty to Enhanced Charge of Having Child Pornography

A file photograph of a judge's gavel. (Andrew Harnik/Pool/Getty Images)

A Texas pastor recently pleaded guilty to an enhanced charge of possession of child pornography, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Texas announced on Thursday.

David Lloyd Walther, 57, a Georgetown resident, pleaded guilty in a federal court in Austin on June 27 to “knowingly” having “searched for, downloaded, distributed and possessed child sexual abuse material, including child pornography” using peer-to-peer file sharing network BitTorrent, according to a release, citing court documents.

Some of the sexual abuse material depicted prepubescent minors.

During a search of Walther’s home and vehicle in November 2022, officers found two large computer hard drives that had over 100,000 images and over 5,000 videos of child sexual abuse materials.

Walther immediately admitted to his crimes upon his arrest on Nov. 11, 2022.

He has apologized and admitted to the crimes several times since, including that he specifically searched for, downloaded, and possessed child pornography via BitTorrent.

But he also noted that he didn’t know he had also been distributing the videos through BitTorrent.

At the time, Walther was the pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock.

David Clawson, a deacon at the church, told the Austin American-Statesman on Nov. 11, 2022, that church leaders were regretful about the situation. “We regret anything along these lines that has happened,” Clawson said. “The church will continue to move forward as God has led.”

The outlet reported, citing a complaint, that Walther told an FBI agent that he “had a pornography addiction and would often go through cycles of downloading and viewing pornography depicting both adults and minors.”

Per the complaint, Walther said the children he was viewing were between 8 and 17 years old. He also noted that he had last deleted child pornography files on Nov. 8, 2022, the night before authorities served search warrants at his home.

Walther said he “would often feel guilty and go through a ‘purging’ of files, i.e., deleting the images and associated files, because he knew it was wrong,” according to the complaint.

An affidavit cited by Law&Crime stated that Walther had some “BSDM” and bestiality pornography content involving children.

He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and a maximum fine of $250,000.

The FBI San Antonio Division’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force is investigating the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Devlin is prosecuting the case.