A Phoenix grandfather was arrested last week after having child-porn pictures developed -- as well as photos featuring kids he's suspected of molesting.
Brian Neal Wallace, 51, went to the CVS Pharmacy at 7499 West Bethany Home Road in Glendale and used a kiosk to download hundreds of photos from a thumb-drive, printing 64 of them and putting the rest on a CD. The next day, a CVS worker inspected the images on the store's machine and saw enough to shock him into calling police.
During the ensuing investigation, multiple pornographic images were discovered among the pictures. Three of the images depicted teens "being sexually exploited," police say.
Other photographs that Wallace downloaded into the CVS kiosk "contain known people from a 2009 Phoenix case where Wallace was a suspect in a child-molestation case," court paperwork states. "Some of these photographs are of those alleged victims."
He was never charged in the 2009 case, records state.
Records don't make clear whether the victims from the suspected molestation were nude or in sexually exploitative poses.
Glendale police determined through debit-card records and surveillance-camera footage that Wallace was the only person responsible for the download. A search warrant was served on his home and vehicle on December 19 that turned up the printed photographs and the thumb-drive.
Wallace admitted after his arrest that he'd downloaded and printed the photographs, confessing that he had some pictures he shouldn't have. He lawyered up after being told he'd be booked on suspicion of sexual exploitation of a minor but then blurted out that he didn't know the girls in the three pictures of the teens.
Police are trying to find out whether Wallace took the child-porn pictures or got them off the Internet.
Wallace has two grown daughters and three grandchildren, ages 3 and 2, he told police, who used the info to argue that Wallace shouldn't be released from jail.
The address given in records for Wallace's home is that of the Phoenix Dream Center, a "residential discipleship" of the Church on the Street that includes "intense Christian boot camp" and physical training with the goal of helping members free themselves from addictions and "unproductive lifestyles."
The program often helps people recently released from prison. But Arizona prison records don't list Wallace as a former inmate. A supervisor at the Church on the Street, 3210 Grand Avenue, tells New Times that Wallace had lived there for about a year, working an outside job and paying rent -- but he wasn't sure why Wallace came to the program. The supervisor also says residents' criminal histories are checked before they can move in, because the program does not accept convicted sex offenders.
Glendale police failed to return repeated calls about the case. On December 24, Wallace was charged by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office with four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, records show.
