ST. LOUIS — A retired St. Louis priest pleaded guilty to federal charges Wednesday and admitted to having thousands of photos and videos containing child porn and sexual abuse.
James Beighlie, 72, pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of child porn in federal court.
According to a press release, Beighlie admitted in his plea agreement that while he was working at the Congregation of the Mission in St. Louis in 2021, colleagues found compromising photos of him on a church printer.
“The church launched an internal investigation that included a review of four desktop computer towers, a laptop and a smartphone used by Beighlie,” according to the release.
Once a private IT company found what appeared to be videos of minors engaging in sexual acts, an attorney for the church called the FBI.
According to Beighlie’s plea, about 6,000 images of child sexual abuse material were found on one computer. About half of that material contained child pornography.
“There were also two PowerPoint presentations created by Beighlie that linked to thousands of the images,” according to the release. “Another computer has 236 images and 40 videos containing child sexual abuse material.”
Beighlie is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 10.
The case was investigated by the FBI. The assistant United States attorney is prosecuting the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
In a statement, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, called on the church to reach out to parishioners and former students that may have been victimized. The statement said he formerly taught at St. Thomas Aquinas/Mercy High School in St. Louis, Vincent Gray Academy in East St. Louis, and Our Lady Queen of Peace church in House Springs, Missouri.
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