Sex offender continues choosing churches for illicit activities

In 2002, Rolling Hills Covenant Church was experiencing a strange series of incidents in which someone broke in and used the church computers to look up child pornography. During investigation of one such incident, sheriff's deputies from Lomita recovered "human semen and exrement near the computers, as well as multiple Xerox printed pages depicting the computer history of Web sites, links and unidentified female minors associated with the church computer system," according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court last week.

Deputies responded to the church on July 29, 2002, for a burglary call, and caught Richard Welton as he tried to flee.

According to the District Attorney's office, Welton pleaded no contest to two burglary counts and was sentenced to five years in prison in October 2002.

A similarily crude pattern of crimes resurfaced more recently at some West Covina churches in the years since Welton's parole. This time, Welton was connected through the DNA he leaves behind. He is back in federal custody and was recently indicted by a federal grand jury for child pornography possession.

Our colleagues at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune have the latest, as well as a link to the documents that detail Welton's alleged activities ... if you're into that kind of thing.