Lahey is well known in Nova Scotia as the bishop who did what no previous Catholic leader had done before: accept responsibility and apologize — without any resort to litigation — for the sex-abuse crimes of a former priest in his diocese.

The victims of that abuse, dating back to the 1950s, are now eligible for compensation from a $15-million out-of-court settlement Lahey negotiated earlier this year.

Lahey was in the midst of a difficult fundraising effort across his diocese to generate money for the settlement, when he was pulled aside by Canada Border Services agents for a random check of his laptop at Ottawa International Airport on Sept. 15.

Det. Dan Melchiorre, the lead investigator on the case and a member of the Ottawa Police High Tech Crimes Unit, says Lahey was not known to the Ottawa Police, or a target of its ongoing, anti-child porn program, before his arrival at the airport. Rather, he says Lahey "triggered" the interest of airport security agents who then conducted a secondary search of his computer.

Melchiorre won't say what those specific triggers were.

He says authorities seized Lahey's laptop, which allegedly contained images of child pornography — plus a number of thumb drives, which are small, portable plug-in devices that store digital pictures and information.