Española jeweler facing child pornography charges

An Española jewelry store owner and designer faces child pornography charges after a former employee discovered the images on his work computer, according to court records.

David Dear, 69, was charged June 27 in Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court with felony sexual exploitation of children, records show. He is out of custody on a $10,000 unsecured appearance bond.

Dear owns a jewelry shop bearing his name on North Paseo De Oñate, within 100 yards of a children’s day care center, an arrest warrant affidavit says. His website describes him as a jewelry designer and silversmith whose works are shown throughout the country and include pieces in the Museum of New Mexico and Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian collections.

The affidavit says that on May 8, a woman who created sales brochures for Dear told Española police she had been searching Dear’s work computer for photographs for the brochure when she discovered a file containing images of girls estimated to be between 6 and 12 performing sexual acts on adult males.

Another file showed videos of Dear having intercourse with females younger than him, though the former employee said she could not tell their ages, the affidavit says.

The woman told police that she quit her job the same day “because she found it disturbing and didn’t feel comfortable working with” Dear, according to the affidavit.

Police executed a search warrant and seized Dear’s computer May 14.

The arrest warrant says a forensic examination later revealed “21 suspected child pornography and/or child erotica images” in one folder and another 179 images of suspected child pornography were found in the computer’s recycle bin. The document says 20 of the images depicted naked girls estimated to be between the ages of 10 and 14.

Dear’s attorney, Kenneth Gleria, could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.