BEAUMONT, Texas — A Jefferson County prosecutor has resigned over a 2021 child porn case, involving a former Port Neches fire chief, that was never submitted to the grand jury.
The former fire chief was recently charged with similar crimes earlier this month in another Texas county.
Paul Edward Nelson, 57, was arrested on October 2, 2023, by Montgomery County constables and later charged with promotion of child pornography and online solicitation of a minor.
In January 2021 he was arrested in Jefferson County on child porn charges but never indicted because the assistant district attorney handling the case did not send it to the grand jury according to Jefferson County District Attorney Keith Giblin.
Following Nelson's Montgomery County arrest in early October, the Jefferson County district attorney's office recently reviewed the 2021 case and decided to move forward Giblin told 12News on Thursday.
Nelson was indicted on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, by a Jefferson County grand jury.
The assistant district attorney who handled Nelson's case in 2021 has recently resigned Giblin confirmed to 12News on Thursday. Giblin would not confirm which ADA resigned.
12News has learned via a public records request that the prosecutor was Kim DuChamp, who submitted her resignation via email to Pat Knauth on Monday morning, October 16, 2023.
Knauth is the "first assistant" of the trial section at the District Attorney's Office in Jefferson County.
Giblin told 12News he could not offer any other comment on the resignation saying it is a personnel matter.
Giblin did release a statement to 12News saying...
"Our office receives thousands of cases each year for review and prosecution.
Ten months ago, when I took office, I established new procedures to ensure that cases such as this one were handled efficiently and properly.
We recently determined that those procedures were not followed in this case.
The responsible employee resigned and the case has been indicted and assigned to another prosecutor. We will continue to see that justice is done in this county"
In January 2021, while he was the fire chief at the Port Neches Fire Department, Nelson was arrested and later charged with two counts of promotion and possession of child pornography. He posted a $50,000 bond the morning after he was arrested according to file stories.
Nelson was terminated from the Port Neches Fire Department the day after his arrest and later relocated to Conroe.
In his most recent arrest, on October 2, 2023 in Montgomery County, he is facing charges for promotion of child pornography and online solicitation of a minor.
In this recent case, detectives say that Nelson sent and requested explicit photos of child sexual assault material to a child under 14-years-old in The Woodlands.
They say he had been actively chatting with the teen.
He is currently being held on bonds totaling $200,000 for those two charges in the Montgomery County Jail.
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