Independence police from a child exploitation task force hauled four computers out of St. Ann’s Catholic Church offices yesterday.
Examiners will be studying the hardware, looking for child pornography. There will now be changes made in internet distribution at parishes.
Detectives told a diocese executive that someone had accessed child porn on the morning of February 5th, and the IP address was traced back to the parish office.
Diocese Communications Director Jack Smith said police were joined by FBI agents in his presence as computers were collected.
"There’s the possibility it was somebody at the parish or somebody who was accessing their wi-fi but forensic examination of the computers will determine that,” Smith said.
Smith confirms the St. Ann’s Parish wi-fi was not secured by encryption, and “it will be now. We’ve not given the parishes any directives about securing their wi-fi connections, but we certainly will do that now.”
There have been no arrests.