Former youth pastor sentenced in child porn case

A 47-year-old former youth pastor has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty in a child porn case.

He also will have a lifetime of supervised release following his prison term.

Joe Tapia III pleaded guilty in October to solicitation of material relating to the sexual exploitation of children.

By pleading guilty, the former Excel Learning Center (ELC) admissions service representative and local church youth minister admitted that he had sexually explicit instant messenger chats with multiple minors on both his work and home computers.

Furthermore, Tapia admitted that he recorded video and still images of two children
while they were changing clothes prior to a church performance and used those recordings to solicit other sexually explicit images of children.

Tapia has remained in custody since his arrest by FBI in May 2012.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation together with the El Paso Police Department.