Bradley Avery appears in this May 2020 News archive photo.

ALPENA — Bradley Avery, sentenced last year for stealing more than $16,000 while treasurer of the Alpena County Fair Board, videotaped minor girls without their knowledge as they were participating in the annual Alpena County Fair Queen Pageant, police say.

Arrested on child pornography charges in May after a more-than-yearlong investigation by the Alpena County Sheriff’s Office, Avery was a trusted 4-H leader and pageant advisor before recording the girls in August 2017, according to police reports obtained by The News through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Avery pleaded not guilty to the accusations. Defense attorney Dan White was reviewing police records on Wednesday and had no further comment.

All volunteers for Michigan State University Extension, which oversees 4-H programs, undergo background checks and interviews before they are allowed to volunteer, Adam Koivisto, MSU Extension’s district director for northern lower Michigan, said.

“MSU Extension and Michigan 4-H are committed to supporting the victims and survivors of sexual assault,” Koivisto told The News. “If the young people who were affected by Mr. Avery choose to reach out to us, we will offer the resources to support the healing process.”

A Fair Board laptop, used exclusively by Avery, was seized by police on Feb. 8, 2018, two days after he admitted he falsified treasurer reports. Avery was allowed to keep the computer for those two days to retrieve personal information, according to police reports.

The computer did not undergo a forensic examination at the time.

In January 2019, the Sheriff’s Office sent the computer to a Michigan State Police crime lab after a relative of a 4-H member expressed concern after hearing rumors Avery had cameras set up in his house, where 4-H girls regularly spent time.

Avery knew the girls through volunteering with the 4-H and as a supervisor with the pageant, a Fair Board event in which 4-H has no involvement.

The video files, deleted from the computer on the same day he admitted to the falsified reports, were recovered by the crime lab and shared with the Sheriff’s Office in March 2019.

The videos show several minor girls changing into and out of dresses in a storage room at the Alpena County Fair office. The girls, who told police they were unaware they were being filmed, appear unclothed at several points in the videos.

The videos were filmed while Avery, shown briefly in one of the videos before the girls started changing, was in a separate room.

Several families told police many 4-H girls spent time at Avery’s house for 4-H group meetings, as well as on other occasions, including spending the night before travelling with him to other fairs, police reports said. Avery also hosted at least one party at his hunting camp with young girls.

The police reports do not indicate any videorecordings of 4-H members other than those taken in the storage room were found on Avery’s devices. He is not accused of improperly touching anyone.

About a dozen cameras and phones were recovered from Avery’s home by police, some placed in a hutch in his dining room.

Fair Board President Jacob Bowen knew Avery had cameras in his home for security and one on his desk at the fair office. He was unaware of any cameras in the storage room where the girls were changing, according to police reports.

Changing into pageant dresses in the fair office was regular procedure, and Avery — who was vocal about keeping the pageant when other board members wanted to get rid of it — usually was responsible for escorting the girls to the office to change, Bowen told police.

In April 2019 — days before Avery announced in court he would accept a plea deal on the embezzling charge — police searched his residence, seizing about a dozen cameras and phones and accompanying digital storage devices, which were sent to an MSP crime lab.

In October, three months after Avery was sentenced to six months’ jail time in the embezzlement case, the crime lab told the Sheriff’s Office it had found adult and cartoon pornography and login information for sexual fantasy websites and social networking sites.

After Avery refused to share the password to his personal cell phone, the U.S. Secret Service was able to extract a search history of teen pornography, as well as a large collection of adult pornographic images and videos.

Six images on the phone appear to be child sexual abusive images, the police report said.

The final data was collected by the Sheriff’s Office in March and turned over to the Alpena County Prosecutor’s Office.

Avery was arrested May 27 on one count of possession of child sexually abusive material, three counts capturing or distributing an image of an unclothed person, and one count of using computers to commit a crime.

Avery was suspended from his volunteer position with the Alpena 4-H program after he was charged with embezzlement in 2018, according to Koivisto, of MSU Extension. The 4-H club led by Avery and his wife disbanded in 2019 after a year of inactivity.

Avery is scheduled to be represented in the 88th District Court today for a brief hearing, and will appear next week for a preliminary examination, where a judge will determine if there’s enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial.