Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post employee charged with child pornography possession

A Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post employee has been charged with possession of child pornography following an FBI search of his home in Washington, D.C.

Thomas LeGro, 48, was taken into custody by the FBI on Thursday, according to local TV station NBC News4. The arrests followed the search in which FBI agents seized his laptop and found that it contained 11 videos depicting child pornography, according to a federal criminal complaint.

The FBI had been tracking LeGro's internet activity since May 8.

In the search Tuesday, agents saw what appeared to be fractured pieces of a hard drive in a basement hallway and the empty cover of a hard drive in a basement office when they entered LeGro's house, according to the criminal complaint. LeGro was in the doorway at the top of the stairs to the basement.

LeGro is a deputy director of video for The Post newspaper and was part of a team of journalists that won a Pulitzer in 2018 for their coverage of Judge Roy Moore and his run for the U.S. Senate in Alabama in 2017. Moore lost the race after several women accused him of sexually assaulting them when they were underage.

“The Post understands the severity of these allegations, and the employee has been placed on leave,” the newspaper told NBC News4 in a statement.

On Friday, a magistrate judge ordered that LeGro be held until a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday. LeGro asked for a public defender, but the judge said he may not qualify. It is currently unclear who will represent him.