Man jailed, accused of downloading child porn

A man previously convicted of a child-sex crime was arrested Tuesday for allegedly downloading child pornography from his computer at The Seattle Times.

Richard Flores, 58, was booked into the King County Jail for investigation of sexual exploitation of a child. He was ordered held on probable cause after making his first appearance in King County District Court on Wednesday afternoon, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. His bail has been set at $500,000.

Flores, of Seattle, had been convicted under a different name in 1997 of communication with a minor for immoral purposes.

Flores worked as a clerk in the finance department at The Times. He was fired Tuesday after more than 10 years with the company, said Jill Mackie, spokeswoman for the newspaper. She said The Times cooperated with the police investigation.

"We do not routinely do across-the-board criminal background checks in pre-employment screening. As a result, we did not learn of his prior legal issues," Mackie wrote in an email Wednesday.

Seattle police began the investigation after being contacted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about a month ago regarding someone in the area downloading child pornography, Seattle police Detective Malinda Wilson wrote in a statement of probable cause that outlines the case.

Flores was allegedly using his personal Yahoo account to download images from Flickr, an online photo-sharing service, police said.

When Flores was arrested Tuesday, he told police that he is "addicted to child porn," Wilson wrote in her report.

Once the photos were downloaded, Flores placed them on a thumb drive, police said. Investigators searched Flores' home computer as well as his work computer, authorities said.

When he was convicted in 1997, Flores went by the name Richard F. Fortier. He had been charged with two counts of first-degree child molestation stemming from alleged assaults on relatives between 1993 and 1996, but later pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of communication with a minor for immoral purposes after the victims declined to testify, according to police and King County Superior Court records.

Flores was sentenced to six months in jail and two years of probation. According to police, he changed his last name in 2005.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times staff reporter Christine Clarridge and news researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report.