BRENTWOOD — When police arrived on the doorstep of a Salem man suspected of sharing child pornography in January, they only knew someone at the home was using an Internet connection to download the illegal videos and images, according to a police affidavit recently made public.

Under questioning by police, Troy Thompson, 67, of Salem admitted he was downloading and viewing the child pornography, Salem Detective Eric Dugas said in a sworn affidavit.

Thompson’s case is now headed to Rockingham County Superior Court, where a grand jury will consider indicting him on felony charges.

He waived his probable cause hearing on Monday in 10th Circuit Court in Salem on a single count of possession of child sexual abuse images.

Thompson agreed to be interviewed by police after a team of officers from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force descended upon his house at 4 Mascoma Road on Jan. 5 with a search warrant to seize all computers, hard drives and other media inside.

“During the interview, Troy admitted to downloading, viewing then deleting child sexual abuse images as well as having ‘chats’ involving having sexual relations with children,” Dugas said in the affidavit.

Thompson was arrested on June 20 — nearly a year after Comcast supplied investigators with his Internet account information and home address.

Court documents suggest police were able to trace the pornography to Thompson because he was using peer-to-peer software to share videos. (Such software is commonly used by people to illegally share music and movies and other media protected by copyright.)

The Jan. 5 interview was done by ICAC members Allison Vachon, an attorney general investigator, and Tara Laurent, who recently became Greenland’s police chief.

At the time of the raid, Thompson was an information technology employee with the Eagle-Tribune newspaper. He has since been fired from his job.

Thompson was involuntarily committed overnight at Parkland Medical Center’s Center for Life Management on the night that police raided his home. He made several threats about harming himself or having police officers harm him, according to police.

He is currently free on $10,000 personal recognizance bail.

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James A. Kimble may be reached at JKimble@newstote.com.