Ex-teacher accused of possessing child porn

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A former school teacher appeared in court this morning, to answer to charges of possessing child pornography.

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Prosecutors say the ex-wife of Thomas Edward Kelley found the child porn on one of their computers.

Even though formal charges were not filed against against Kelley until this week. It was in late February when pornographic photos were allegedly found on his computer by his ex-wife.

On March 2, the home was searched and then the following day is when the district fired him from teaching at Kinkaid High School.

The two apparently have a friendly divorce. The assistant district attorney says Kelley's ex-wife was apparently using his computer and he had apparently not logged out of his Gmail account. She started going through his account and that is when she allegedly came across hundreds of photos of children involved in pornographic acts.

Kelley was suspended from his job upon hearing about these allegations. He was immediately terminated on March 3 and formal charges were filed this week after forensic evidence were able to get into the computer and then get detailed description of the photos that were in the computer.

Authorities say there could possibly be photos of his daughter in there. However, they are still going through the computer to determine if that in fact is the case.

He is currently free on a $40,000 bond.

Kinkaid High School released this statement on Kelley.

"From August 2006 through March 3 2009 Tom Kelley was a part-time filmmaking teacher at Kinkaid. When the school learned that Mr. Kelley was the subject of a criminal investigation in Harris County related to the inappropriate use of information technology, Mr. Kelley was dismissed. School administrators spoke privately with filmmaking students at Kinkaid and communicated with their parents about this matter, and we are confident that nothing inappropriate occurred in the filmmaking classes or with students. Further, the school takes no position with respect to the criminal investigation and will let the criminal justice process run its course."

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