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Investigators seized more than 30,000 electronic child pornography images when they searched the locker last month of a Berkeley firefighter who is now being held in Santa Rita jail in lieu of $1 million in bail, said the prosecutor handling his case. 

Most of the images were seized from a locker at a Berkeley fire station, said Alameda County Deputy District Attorney John Creighton. 

“He didn’t even have a lock on it,” the prosecutor added. 

The suspect, 49-year-old firefighter Luis Ponce, a 17-year veteran of the Berkeley Department, was arrested at his home in Grass Valley on Jan. 26. 

He is scheduled to enter a plea on 57 counts of possession of child pornography on Feb. 15 in Department 104 of Alameda County Superior Court, Creighton said. 

According to the prosecutor, a search of Ponce’s fire department locker by a team of investigators headed by Berkeley Police Detective Angela Hawk turned up CDs, digital videos and one or two analog recordings of underage porn. 

“The subjects were under age, and as I understand it, the overwhelming number of them were of females, although there were some males as well,” Creighton said. 

Investigators were first alerted to Ponce when another fire department employee discovered child porn images on a shared computer and an investigation followed. 

A search made at the time of Ponce’s arrest in Grass Valley resulted in the seizure of computers and disks, Creighton said. That computer gear is still undergoing expert examination by forensic investigators in Nevada County. 

“Typically in these case, there are computer security systems with passwords and the like,” the prosecutor said. 

Each of the 57 charges now pending is a misdemeanor. 

“Possession of child pornography is a misdemeanor,” Creighton said, “while manufacture or participation in the manufacture of child pornography is a felony.” Distribution is also a felony. 

As one part of the investigation, detectives in Alameda and Nevada counties are trying to identify some of the children used in the creation of the images. 

“We’re trying to see if he did more than possess,” Creighton said.