Ex-church Organist Gets 71/2-year Sentence for Child Porn

By Nico Roesler
New Mexican
October 12, 2012

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/101212childporn#.UHhTklEY3tQ

A federal judge Thursday sentenced a former organist for the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi to 7 1/2 years in prison for convictions on seven child pornography charges.

Patrick Railsback, 62, was arrested in September 2009 after a federal indictment charged him with five counts of receiving visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and two counts of possession of child pornography, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Railsback, who was convicted after a two-day trial in September 2011, faced a maximum of 20 years in prison for the convictions and a possible lifetime of supervised release.

According to U.S. Attorney Kenneth Gonzales, Railsback will be on 10 years of supervised probation following his release from prison and will be required to register as a sex offender.

An investigation by state police and the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office began after America Online alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that an AOL email account subscribed to Railsback was used to transmit child pornography.

The Archdiocese of Santa Fe placed Railsback on administrative leave from his job as the cathedral’s organist after state police searched his West San Fransisco Street house and confiscated computers, thumb drives and a Palm Pilot.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, 57 images and 16 videos of child pornography were found on Railsback’s home computer and an additional 28 images and another video were stored on a thumb drive.

According to the search warrant, one of the files had an attached photo depicting “three juvenile males … in a shower room fully nude with genitalia exposed.”

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was able to identify 13 of the children in Railsback’s collection as children who have been “rescued,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice.

Contact Nico Roesler at 986-3089 or nroesler@sfnewmexican.com Follow him on Twitter @nicoroesler