Fla. cops jail Lou. priest on child porn

By Jeff Watkins And Kirsten Clark
Courier-Journal
August 23, 2015

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2015/08/23/louisville-priest-jailed-child-porn-charge/32189691/

Father Stephen Pohl was arrested by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department.

Louisville priest Stephen Pohl was still in a Florida jail this weekend after being arrested on a federal warrant for possession of child pornography Friday by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department.

The arrest, prompted by an alert from the Louisville FBI office, came only hours after Louisville archdiocese leaders held a news briefing in which they outlined results of an FBI investigation of the former pastor of St. Margaret Mary parish.

They said the investigation found child porn on Pohl’s computer and also found up to 200 digital photos of St. Margaret Mary schoolchildren. All of the students were clothed, but investigators deemed some of the photos inappropriate.

Pohl, 57, who had been pastor of the parish since 2008, was recently put on leave in connection with the investigation, and he informed the archdiocese Thursday that he was resigning as pastor of the church.

He was next found in Pinellas County near Tampa Bay, Fla., by county deputies. According to Channel 10 TV in Tampa Bay, the sheriff’s department had been alerted by the FBI that Pohl was in the area and was wanted on a federal warrant.

Pohl was arrested and booked into the county jail shortly before 9 p.m. Friday on a single charge of possession of child pornography.

Law enforcement officials either could not be reached for comment Saturday or shared only basic information, and it was unclear why Pohl was in Florida or how the federal investigators were able to determine he was in Pinellas County.

During a news briefing hours before the arrest, Louisville Archdiocese Chancellor Brian Reynolds said the FBI cyber crimes investigation — prompted after a child told a family member about a photo that was taken that “bothered the child” — is still ongoing and could take months. The information the archdiocese shared Friday was from an interim investigation report officials received a day earlier.

Archdiocese officials haven’t seen the photos of the students, or gotten a description of them, and couldn’t say Friday who is in them, how far back they date or what about them is inappropriate. There were boys and girls, and they were apparently taken on parish grounds. Some parents have said some were taken with children’s permission, Reynolds said.

During the news briefing early Friday afternoon, Cecelia Price, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said she wasn’t aware of any previous disciplinary issues facing Pohl. She declined to release Pohl’s personnel file Friday but said he’d previously held appointments at St. Monica, St. Thomas and Basilica of St. Joseph parishes in Bardstown, Ky., and St. Athanasius and St. Gabriel parishes in Louisville dating back to the mid-1980s.