Airline pilot accused of possessing and trading child porn: St. Petersburg, Florida

ST. PETERSBURG — Federal authorities arrested an airline pilot this week on charges that he possessed and traded hundreds of images and videos of child pornography.

Donald Edwin Gallagher, Jr., 51, was booked Wednesday afternoon into the Pinellas County Jail after an FBI task force served a search warrant at his St. Petersburg home.

During the search, federal agents and local police officers confiscated a Toshiba laptop.

Gallagher confessed he used the computer to look at videos and pictures of prepubescent girls having sex with men, according to a federal complaint.

"He admitted to using the current program to search for pornography and initially claimed that he accidentally downloaded child pornography, but later stated that he downloaded and viewed child pornography out of curiosity," the complaint said.

Investigators began looking into Gallagher in January after they noticed his computer was using software to access child porn. Some of the files had been accessed as recently as Tuesday, officials wrote.

According to Federal Aviation Administration records, Gallagher has been a pilot since 2011. The database does not list the name of his employer.

He is currently in the Pinellas County Jail without bail.

Source:  http://www.tampabay.com