Police arrested the former pastor of First Baptist Church in Los Alamos Friday for allegedly distributing and possessing child pornography.

LAPD Courtesy Paul Cunningham Buy this photo

Paul Cunningham, 54, was arrested and charged with one count of possession and one count of distribution of pornography.

Cunningham was a minister at First Baptist Church at 2200 Diamond Drive, but had recently resigned.

The Los Alamos Police Department was apparently tipped off to Cunningham’s activities Feb. 11, when Los Alamos County Sheriff Marco Lucero and Deputy Sheriff John Horne brought a “zip” file to LAPD Sgt. John Rodriguez’ attention. The file was from a Det. Brian Adams of the Westminster Colorado Police Department. Adams, was conducting a child pornography case in his jurisdiction when he came across Cunningham’s IP address (an address assigned by an internet service provider).

He suspected Cunningham was sending child pornography files to a suspect in Colorado.

LAPD then contacted the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office. At 8 a.m. March 4, armed with a warrant from District Court Judge Sarah Singleton, its team of special investigators and officers from the LAPD searched Cunningham’s home in the 4000 block of Brisa del Bosque for more evidence. The team confiscated an Xbox game console, a black Hewlett Packard Laptop, a Kodak EasyShare Z740 camera, an iPhone, a thumb drive and a Go Pro camera. They also confiscated a silver Apple laptop computer and an iPad.

On April 27 and 27, Sgt. Rodriguez was called to the New Mexico Regional Forensics Laboratory to review the files extracted from the computers.

“Twenty-two of the images were shared through several social media sites. These computers were located at the residence of Paul Cunningham through the execution of a search warrant," Sgt. Rodriguez said in his report.