NORFOLK
A pastor who viewed hundreds of child porn images online in his church office was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday.
David William Smith was the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church when he was arrested in March during Holy Week following an investigation by Norfolk police. Detectives found pictures on his computer of girls ages 6 to 11 engaged in sexual acts with men, according to court records.
Smith, 35, a married father, served as pastor of the Granby Street church from November 2010 until his resignation shortly after his arrest. He was a pastor in St. Louis, San Diego and Nashville, Tenn.
He pleaded guilty in July to 10 counts of child porn possession.
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Catherine Paxson asked Judge Charles E. Poston to give him prison time. Smith and his attorney, Howard Copeland, asked for mercy.
Smith has been working for a ministry in Richmond organizing clothing donations and goes to sex addiction therapy six days a week. He apologized to his victims – the children in the images as well as his family and church community.
“How do you feel about your crime?” Copeland asked him during testimony at the sentencing.
“It disgusts me. I can’t believe I ever got to the point where I would do something like that,” Smith said.
Going to therapy “made me realize that I had a facade of happiness.”
Paxson said she was indignant in court because she had viewed the images that Smith possessed – “little children being raped and sodomized and hurt and degraded.”
Smith was raised in a two-parent family and was not sexually abused as a child, she noted.
“It’s offensive,” she said. “It’s an egregious felony.”
After his release, Smith will spend 30 years on supervised probation.
Patrick Wilson, 757-222-3893, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com
