SAN ANTONIO — An executive with a popular credit union IT security firm was arrested March 8 on child pornography charges. Richard Fleming, executive vice president of security and risk management consulting, was charged with two counts of possession of child pornography and one count of receiving it. Fleming, 43, joined Digital Defense in 2000. Digital Defense has approximately 300 credit union clients. It specializes in performing IT threat assessments. Digital Defense CEO Larry Hurtado emphasized that Fleming has had a limited role in the company's day-to-day business operations since 2005. He has no direct reports and has been working on one client for the past several months. Fleming has also been on the speaking circuit. Hurtado said although Fleming is presumed innocent on all charges, he has been placed on administrative leave for an indefinite period and his physical and network access to corporate assets have been disabled. He also assured that no client data has been compromised. Digital Defense performs background checks every year on a random basis. Hurtado said it last checked Fleming's report in May of 2006 and there were no suspicious findings. "I was personally shocked and saddened by the news of Mr. Fleming's arrest and all the charges that have been filed against him. As the father of two young children, I find these allegations very disturbing, and my heart goes out to Mr. Fleming's family," said Hurtado in a letter to clients informing them of the situation.

Hurtado said since he took over as CEO in 2004 from Joe Cooper he has been working on building up the management team so the loss of any one member of the team wouldn't be detrimental to the company.

"We have worked to expand the management team to reduce the risk of one person having too much control over the operations," said Hurtado. –[email protected]