Former Wrangell physician, Greg Salard, who is facing two federal felony charges of possession and distribution of child pornography, was served with an arrest warrant as a fugitive from Justice last week. The outstanding arrest warrant was for the charge of Aggravated Rape in the state of Louisiana.

 Salard was served the warrant at the Lemon Creek Correctional Center where he has been incarcerated since his arrest in October of last year.

Salard was initially arrested after an investigation was conducted by federal agents into child pornography activities, that they say he carried out on his home computers south of Wrangell.

The  FBI had been monitoring a peer-to-peer network known to be sharing child pornography over the Internet and federal investigators would trace an IP address to computers in Salard’s home. Investigators say that Salard had shared as many as 104 files.

When investigators served the warrant on Salard’s home, they report that Salard initially would not answer the door, but would later meet them at the door on a second attempt after telling them he would meet them there in a few minutes. The FBI report that Salard was in the process of erasing files from his computer, and that process was approximately a third of the way done. But, they state that they were able to retrieve many of those files from the hard drive of the computer despite being partially erased.

Prior to his arrest, Salard was one of four practicing family doctors in the Wrangell area. After his arrest and indictment, Salard’s medical priviledges were suspended with the Alaska Island Community Services as well as the Wrangell Medical Center.

The former doctor had practiced in Wrangell since 2009, and on a prior occasion, had his medical privileges at the center being suspended from 2011 until re-instatement in 2013 after a prior court action.

Salard’s attorney has requested and received two delays in his trial since his indictment. He was originally set to go to trial on January 5th, but his attorney requested a delay in order to review evidence against him. As the new trial date approached, his attorney would seek another continuance to have Salard’s computers forensically evaluated.His newest trial date is set for late May.

Salard faces up to ten years in prison on the possession charge, and a fine of up to $250,000. For the distribution charges, Salard faces no less than 5 years in prison and as much as 20 years. If convicted he faces the possibility of a lifetime of supervised release after his prison term ends.

  aggravated rape, child pornography, doctor, file sharing, greg salard, internet, louisiana, physician, prison, warrant, wrangell