A man with a long history of possessing child pornography has been charged by Colorado Springs police for keeping a cellphone with dozens of explicit illegal photos.

According to court documents obtained by The Gazette, the man, 56-year-old Alan Wencker, had been in a counseling and treatment facility in Colorado Springs when staff there notified Colorado Springs police that the man had a cellphone that he was not supposed to possess. Staff at the facility alerted police when they found child pornography on the device.

Police investigators state that Wencker has a criminal history dating back to 1994, with a dozen arrests tied to “sexually based criminal charges.”

The cellphone was examined by police, and was found to contain more than 12,000 images. Investigators report scanning just 10% of the photos and finding at least a dozen examples of child sexual abuse material. 

Wencker was arrested on Jan. 16 on suspicion of felony sexual exploitation of a child. As of Saturday afternoon, he remained in El Paso County Jail, awaiting a court date on his new charge.