Pediatric nurse who works at Massachusetts hospital charged with child porn

Peter Sahagian, 61, of Arlington, was released on personal recognizance after his arraignment on Wednesday in Cambridge District Court, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement Thursday. Conditions of his release were that Sahagian stay away from and have no contact with children under 18 and not to use the Internet.

Sahagian is charged with possessing child pornography, Ryan said. The charge stems from a thumb drive that Sahagian is alleged to have had containing multiple images of child pornography.

A preliminary investigation found that the images in Sahagian's possession were downloaded from the Internet on his home computer and does not indicate that images contained on the flash drive are of patients, Ryan said.

Sahagian was arrested without incident Wednesday, one day after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Acting on a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Arlington police and a representative from the FBI's Human Trafficking-Child Exploitation Task Force visited Sahagian's home on May 16. Authorities began investigating after receiving a tip that Sahagian had downloaded an image of child pornography using the search engine Bing.

Investigators examined a thumb drive, allegedly belonging to Sahagian that contained multiple pornographic images of minor females, Ryan said.

Sahagian is due back in court on July 24.