Reporter staff

Convicted child rapist Robert Francis Pierce of Kirkland was arrested on charges of possessing child pornography and sharing it online. FBI agents made the arrest on Thursday at Pierce’s Kirkland apartment.

Pierce was charged with distribution and possession of visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

An FBI agent in Buffalo, N.Y. was looking for people sharing child pornography in May when he logged onto a file-sharing network called LimeWire, according to charging documents. The agent found a user who was offering photos of pre-adolescent girls engaged in sex acts with adults and in one case, a dog. The FBI obtained a search warrant and traced the source of the pictures to Pierce, said documents.

The Kirkland man was convicted of child rape and child molestation in 2003.

Thursday, a local FBI agent went to Pierce’s apartment and he gave the agent permission to search his apartment. The agent found photos of young girls in sexually explicit poses.