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A person close to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office has noted local prosecutor Kim Duchamp has resigned her post.

District Attorney Keith Giblin said Thursday he cannot confirm nor deny the move, adding her employment is a personnel issue.

The news comes after the Oct. 2 arrest of ex-Port Neches fire chief Paul Nelson in Montgomery County on charges of promotion of child pornography and online solicitation of a minor.

Nelson was arrested in January 2021 in Port Neches on two charges of possession and promotion of child pornography. Bond was set at $50,000 and he bonded out the next day.

The Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office said in 2021 that members of the Office of the Texas Attorney General’s Child Exploitation Unit executed the arrest and search warrant for Nelson.

Nelson was not indicted at that time in Jefferson County for the charges and he later moved out of the area to Montgomery County.

His Montgomery County arrest spurred Port Arthur Newsmedia calls to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office for information on the status of the local case.

A representative of Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office said earlier this month no case was ever filed on Nelson.

It is unknown how the case slipped through the system, during which time another alleged victim was found in Montgomery County.

Nelson was indicted this week on the child pornography related charges in relation to the Jefferson County arrest. The case was submitted to the D.A.’s office by Gary Marquis of the Attorney General’s Office.

The local indictment did not have a probable cause affidavit or accompanying documents, but the Montgomery cases provided some insight into the allegations that Nelson went online posing as a female and struck up an online conversation with a juvenile female.

The Montgomery County arrest document stated Nelson used the same “modus operandi” for the offence as he used in Jefferson County by portraying himself as a female member of a nudist community to solicit explicit content from a child.

Officials with the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office said they do not know at this time if Nelson is going to be extradited back to Jefferson County or if he will face the Montgomery County charges first.