A former Freeborn County pastor was sentenced to jail time last week after he was convicted on three counts of possession of child pornography in June.

Dennis Schmidt of Big Lake is a former pastor of Hartland-Manchester Evangelical Lutheran Churches.

According to court records, Schmidt was sentenced to 25 months in prison, of which 180 days will be served in jail.

After serving his jail time, he will be on conditional release for five years.

Schmidt is required to register as a predatory offender and will not be to have any position of authority over minors or vulnerable adults and is prohibited from loitering in any place where children frequent.

According to the Big Lake Police Department, Schmidt was charged after authorities received a report from a computer service business regarding suspicious images found on a computer hard drive. During a routine scan of the hard drive by the service technician at the business, several images of children depicted in sexually suggestive positions were found.

Items on the drive included previously recognized victims of child pornography through a match with a database at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Center.

Additional search of additional computer hardware at Schmidt’s home revealed additional reognized child victims, including 58 identified children through NCMEC, according to the Police Department.

Schmidt was installed as the new pastor at Hartland-Manchester in 1987. He retired from the ministry in 2011.