A Catholic priest who served time in jail on child pornography charges has been defrocked by the Vatican — at his own request. Richard J. Poster was the director of liturgy and he published newspaper for the Davenport Diocese.
In August of 2003 he pleaded guilty to receiving sexually-explicit pictures of children. Computer technicians discovered the material on his church-owned laptop computer. He was sentenced to one year in federal prison in 2005 and released from prison later that year. At his sentencing hearing, Poster told the judge he wanted to leave the priesthood.