Minister Pleads Guilty In Child Porn Case

New Mexico: A former youth minister at a Los Alamos church has pleaded guilty in a federal child pornography case and could face up to 40 years in prison.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Albuquerque said in a news release that Matthew Nichols, 58, of Los Alamos appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge W. Daniel Schneider on Friday and pleaded guilty under a plea agreement to distribution and attempted distribution of child pornography.

Nichols, who previously had been convicted of corruption of minors and criminal solicitation (to commit involuntary deviant sexual intercourse) in Pennsylvania, will face at sentencing a term of not less than 15 years and not more than 40 years imprisonment, a maximum fine of $250,000 and a lifetime term of supervised release, the news release said. He also will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison.

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Nichols, who was fired in August by Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Los Alamos, has been in custody since his arrest on June 23.