SF church pastor among five men arrested in child porn busts

Senior Pastor at SF’s Christ Church Lutheran, Rev. Steven Sabin, one of 5 suspects arrested in recent citywide child porn busts. Senior Pastor at SF’s Christ Church Lutheran, Rev. Steven Sabin, one of 5 suspects arrested in recent citywide child porn busts. Photo: San Francisco Police Department Photo: San Francisco Police Department Image 1 of / 33 Caption Close SF church pastor among five men arrested in child porn busts 1 / 33 Back to Gallery

San Francisco police on Tuesday announced a sweeping child-porn bust that netted five suspects, including the senior pastor at a Sunset District Lutheran church who allegedly possessed hundreds of pictures and videos of children engaged in sexual acts and was sharing them on social media.

The suspect, the Rev. Steven Sabin, 59, is senior pastor at Christ Church Lutheran on Quintara Street, where he has been since 2001, according to the church’s website. Church officials did not return multiple phone calls or messages.

Investigators with the San Francisco Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit searched Sabin’s home on the 1300 block of Market Street on Thursday. On Sabin’s phone, detectives found “hundreds of child pornography videos and images depicting juvenile minors being sexually abused,” police said in a written release.

Police also allegedly found more child porn on a cloud storage application. Sabin was also “distributing child pornography through an online social media application,” police said.

He was booked in San Francisco Jail on suspicion of possession of child pornography, possession of more than 600 files of child pornography and distribution of child pornography.

Thursday’s bust accounted for only one of five San Francisco men arrested in recent weeks on suspicion of possessing child pornography.

In the first of the operations, on Oct. 4, investigators searched 24-year-old Nicholas Fong’s home on the 500 block of Lombard Street in North Beach. Police believed he was hosting child porn on a blog and found hundreds of pictures of child porn on his phone, officials said. Fong was arrested on suspicion of possession of child pornography, and possession of over 600 files of child pornography.

Then on Oct. 11, police searched the home of information technology specialist Donald Wright, 58. They were investigating him for uploading child porn on a peer-to-peer file sharing network, police said.

Inside his home on the 1000 block of Sutter Street, investigators found hundreds of child porn images and videos on dozens of media devices, police said. He was arrested on suspicion of possession of child pornography and possession of over 600 files of child pornography.

Five days later, on Oct. 16, police searched 43-year-old Elihu Hernandez’s home on the 200 block of Eddy Street. He was suspected of hosting child porn on a blog; police searching his home found hundreds of pictures and videos of juveniles being sexually abused on several cell phone applications, officials said.

Hernandez was arrested on suspicion of possession of child pornography and distribution of child pornography.

On Oct. 25, investigators served a search warrant at the home of 37-year-old Trevor Schlesinger on the 200 block of Mallorca Way.

Inside, police said, detectives found Schlesinger’s laptop, which contained child pornography pictures and videos. He was booked in jail on suspicion of possession of child pornography.

All of the suspects have since bailed out of jail.

The cases remain active, and police asked that anyone with information on the suspects call the San Francisco Police Department’s tip line at 415-575-4444.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: evan.sernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky