Former Granby Police Captain David Bourque who was arrested earlier this year for suspected possession of child pornography has plead guilty to the federal charges.
Bourque — appearing before Chief United States District Judge Alvin W. Thompson at the United States District Court in Hartford — waived his right to indictment by a grand jury and plead guilty to one count of receipt and distribution of child pornography.
He now faces a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of five years and a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years, according to Thomas Carson, spokesperson for the United States Attorney's Office District of Connecticut.
Chief Judge Thompson scheduled Bourque's sentencing for Oct. 11.
Bourque was on a federal charge of possession of child pornography after investigators found thousands of sexually explicit images of children on a computer hard drive that he owned.
In that search, state police seized a laptop and other computer components, including an external hard drive, that were personally owned by Bourque. These items, most of which were encrypted, were seized pursuant to a state search warrant, Carson said.
State police also executed a search warrant at Bourque’s home in West Suffield.
According to court documents and statements made in court, on two occasions in March 2011, a Connecticut State Police trooper assigned to the Connecticut State Police Computer Crimes Unit, acting in an undercover capacity, logged into a publicly available Internet file sharing program and downloaded several images of suspected child pornography from an account maintained by Bourque, Carson said.
Following the search, Bourque met with members of the Connecticut State Police and Federal Bureau of Investigation to explain how he had encrypted the hard drive to conceal his collection of child pornography, and provided investigators with passwords required to access his accounts.
Carson said forensic analysis of two laptops, two external hard drives and a media card Bourque possessed revealed some 22,282 images and 4,084 videos of child pornography primarily depicting the sexual abuse of prepubescent boys, including toddlers and infants.
Bourque had organized his child pornography collection in more than 300 subfolders, including those named “photos - babies - men” and “6-10yo boys pics," according to Carson.
One of the laptops that contained images of child pornography was Bourque’s work-issued computer from the Granby Police Department.
Bourque resigned from the department early last month after reaching with the town. He had been on paid administrative leave since his arrest. As part of the agreement, the former captain received a one-time payment of $30,000 in exchange for stepping down from his post.
Bourque joined the Granby Police Department in early 2010 after 30 years with the Suffield Police Department.
In addition to the child pornography charges, Bourque was arrested April 26 on a charge of possession of less than 4 ounces of marijuana, a misdemeanor. He has since to the charges. Court records indicate the marijuana was discovered April 11, the same day federal and state authorities searched Bourque's Suffield home and his office at the Granby police station in connection with an investigation into child pornography.
Bourque's pornography case was one of more than two dozen arrests made as a result of Operation Constant Vigilance, an investigation into child sex exploitation that included local, state, and federal authorities.
