Texas pastor who downloaded 150K files of BDSM, bestiality-themed child porn, some at church, pleads guilty

On Tuesday, a veteran Texas pastor admitted to acquiring over 100,000 files of child pornography with “BDSM” and bestiality themes, often doing so at his place of worship.

David Lloyd Walther, 57, confessed that he “knowingly sought, obtained, shared, and held child sexual exploitation material, including explicit images of minors,” as stated by the US Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Texas on Thursday.

Walther had been fulfilling his 18th year as the clergyman at Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock, a town situated 20 miles north of Austin, when he was apprehended in October for hoarding numerous depraved items via BitTorrent, a decentralized file-sharing network.

Walther — who promptly confessed to the offense upon his apprehension — acquired the malicious material from the place of worship in addition to his personal residence in Georgetown.

Investigators discovered two sizable computer hard drives that held “more than 100,000 images and more than 5,000 videos of child sexual abuse material” during a search of the clergyman’s home,” prosecutors noted.

As per an arrest affidavit, unsettling documents were kept in roughly marked directories on the computers.

Walther possessed a collection labeled “BDSM” which featured pictures of young children before adolescence bound with cords and mouth restraints, compelling them to assume sexually provocative positions and engage in acts.

Another, named “Zoo,” showcased a zoophilia footage featuring a canine and a young girl “probably under the age of three.”

Additionally, he acquired numerous videos via BitTorrent that depicted adolescent females being subjected to sexual exploitation by grown males, alongside instances where minors were coerced into perpetrating abusive acts on each other.

Given that he was taken into custody, Walther decided not to exercise his Miranda rights and confessed to having committed the act.

“Pornography addiction and would often go through cycles of downloading and viewing pornography depicting both adults and minors” and that “when he viewed the child pornography, the children depicted were between 8 and 17 years old, either posing sexually or engaged in sex acts with adults or other children,” the documents read.

The clergyman also confessed that he had a tendency to “cleanse” the forbidden documents when he experienced remorse, acknowledging the immorality of his actions.

He expressed remorse and admitted multiple instances of acquiring the immoral content, yet asserted his unawareness of the dissemination of the videos via BitTorrent.

The church that Walther used to belong to has subsequently severed connections with the deviant and eliminated any trace of him from its online platforms.

Last year, Deacon David Clawson expressed to the Fort Worth-Star Telegram that the church leaders deeply “lament” any occurrences that took place during Walther’s leadership.

“The church will continue to move forward as God has led,” Clawson stated.