EL PASO (TX)
El Paso Times
By Adriana M. Chávez / El Paso Timeselpasotimes.com
Posted: 05/04/2012
A youth minister at a Lower Valley church has been ordered jailed without bond while he awaits his trial date on child pornography charges.
Joe Tapia III, 46, is accused in a criminal complaint filed in federal court of downloading several nude images of young boys on his work computer at Excel Learning Center, where he worked as an admissions service representative, and of engaging in a sexually-explicit Internet chat with someone whom he believed was a 16-year-old boy in Argentina.
Tapia is also accused of taking nude photographs of two boys, each 15 years old, and sending photos of one boy to seven online contacts.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Norbert Garney ordered Tapia held without bond, calling him a potential danger to the community, during a hearing Friday morning.
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