A former Lac La Biche foster parent and foster-care supervisor was sentenced to six months in jail Wednesday after he was convicted of possessing child pornography.

Daniel Quiring Stoesz, 63, pleaded guilty to the charge in a St. Paul courtroom. A second charge of distribution of child pornography was withdrawn.

At the time of his arrest in December 2011, Stoesz worked for Alberta’s Ministry of Human Services in a middle-management position in which he supervised support workers who then dealt directly with foster parents. He had worked for regional foster services in St. Paul for more than 10 years.

Shortly after charges were laid, Stoesz was suspended with pay for the duration of his legal proceedings. He is no longer with the ministry.

Stoesz was also a foster parent. The children formerly in his care were taken to another home.

After his six-month jail sentence, Stoesz will be on probation for two years. He must also be included on the national sex-offender registry for a decade.

Until Wednesday, Stoesz had been on bail with strict conditions. He could not have a computer or any other Internet-access device in his home and was barred from access to the Internet. Stoesz could not contact his family members or anyone under 18 years old.

He was caught after the province’s Internet Child Exploitation team was tipped off by the FBI in Connecticut. They had flagged online child pornography in that state and the investigation led to Lac La Biche, about 230 kilometres north of Edmonton.

Investigators then seized computers from Stoesz’s work and home.

In December, Human Services Minister Dave Hancock called charges against someone so “respected in the community” a shock for “the department and to foster parents.”