A Boulder man was arrested Thursday after police say he left a downtown restaurant without paying his bill but did leave behind a cell phone that turned up hundreds of images of child pornography and visits to child pornography websites.

Bryan James Elrod, 42, was arrested on suspicion of 13 counts of sexual exploitation of a child with possession of more than 20 images, a Class 3 felony.

According to an arrest affidavit, Boulder police were called to Old Chicago, 1102 Pearl St., on Oct. 9 after a customer left without paying his $37.81 bill but left behind a cellphone. When the manager turned on the phone to try to identify its owner, the browser was already opened to a site containing what appeared to be child pornography.

Police took possession of the phone and determined that it belonged to Elrod before securing a warrant on Nov. 19 to search its contents. Investigators checked the browser history and found that “the majority of the websites visited were for pornography,” and that many of them were sites containing child pornography, according to the affidavit.

In addition, investigators found more than 8,000 images saved on the phone, most of them pornography. Of those photos, detectives said they found 267 images that were “obviously sexually explicit photographs of children,” ranging in ages from toddler through early puberty.

Detectives said they also found many other photographs of females possibly under the age of 18, but did not include them in the count of child pornography because they could not be sure they were minors.

According to the affidavit, Elrod has an extensive criminal history — mostly in Boulder and Denver — that includes charges for fraud, theft, forgery, reckless endangerment, assault, DUI, escape from custody, shoplifting and probation and parole violations.

Detectives discovered that Elrod had been arrested just days after he was alleged to have left the phone at Old Chicago on suspicion of parole violations.

Elrod is currently on parole for a Logan County case, and his parole officer was concerned about him because he was not working since his release and was spending “most of his time drinking.” The officer said Elrod had been staying at a motel in Longmont.

A warrant for Elrod’s arrest was issued and executed on Thursday, and he remains at the Boulder County Jail. Court records indicate he has not had a hearing set yet to determine bond.

The warrant also indicates Elrod will not be allowed to have any contact with anyone under the age of 18 if released on bond.

Mitchell Byars: 303-473-1329, byarsm@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/mitchellbyars