As a result, the whereabouts of the computer is a mystery, subpoenas have been issued and the focus of a federal investigation has broadened beyond Mr. Tate to include others who may have been responsible for how the situation has been handled. It is not clear who notified the authorities.

Lawyers say that unless the government finds the missing laptop or evidence of other related crimes, the case against Mr. Tate may be hard to prove. That is because prosecutors must be able to prove that pornographic images of the children are real, and not a facsimile, for someone to be found guilty of possessing child pornography.

"Absent the images, there is no case," said Murray Richman, a defense lawyer in the Bronx. "You have to establish that it is a child. The mere fact that it looks like a young person does not in it of itself create a violation of the law."

Church officials and their current lawyer, Eugene Riccio, have said little publicly about the investigation as federal investigators have searched the premises, issued subpoenas and called the rector, Jeffrey H. Walker, to testify before the grand jury at least twice. Mr. Riccio declined comment for this article.

Francis L. O'Reilly, the lawyer for Mr. Tate, who had been with the church for 35 years, has said that the government's evidence against Mr. Tate is shaky at best and released a statement last week saying that "the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been investigating this matter for some time now, and Mr. Tate has not been charged with any offense."

The episode has ruffled this Episcopalian congregation of 1,500 families, which traces its roots back 300 years. Known for its stately Gothic campus on 10 acres, Christ Church is a source of pride among residents here for being the boyhood church of the first President Bush, and the site of a well-attended memorial service for his mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, who died in 1992.

Helicopters buzzed overhead when the Bessette family paid respects to Lauren G. Bessette, the sister-in-law of John F. Kennedy Jr. The small plane he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 1999, killing him, his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy , and her sister Lauren.

Worshipers at Sunday services a couple weeks ago were told only that a temporary music director would be overseeing the church's music programs.

Parents whose children attend the church's nursery were given a letter saying that Mr. Tate had resigned because "inappropriate material was found on a Christ Church computer used for office purposes."

Several parishioners said they were flabbergasted, having seen no hint of questionable conduct in the time they knew Mr. Tate. "I was in the choirs for six years helping out and never saw a thing," said the mother of a longtime participant in the choir. Like many of those contacted, she spoke on the condition of anonymity because the church did not want anyone besides Mr. Riccio speaking to the press. "He's a wonderful man," she said of Mr. Tate.

The church first learned of the situation on Oct. 7, when the employee who discovered the images showed them to another church employee, according to people familiar with the case.

Two days later, they said, a group of church officials that included the rector and member of the vestry met to discuss the matter and examine the computer along with Philip Russell, then acting as a lawyer for the church.

The church retained a second lawyer, Mr. Riccio, after federal investigators realized Mr. Russell may have been involved in some of the internal deliberations that took place at Christ Church over the weekend.

"I got nothing to say," Mr. Russell said last week.

http://www.nytimes.com/

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