An alert state trooper is being credited with making a key discovery that led to the arrest this week of an Essex County man on child pornography possession charges.

Police also revealed that the same man, Kirkland C. Smith, 53, of Witherbee, was arrested three times in two months for aggravated-level drunk driving.

Smith’s first driving while intoxicated arrest took place Oct. 30 after his vehicle crashed on state Route 73 in Keene. His blood alcohol content was determined to be 0.36 percent, four-and-a-half times the state’s DWI threshold of 0.08 percent.

During that stop, the responding trooper, Timothy Snickles, caught a glance of images on an electronic device – a tablet computer or a smartphone – in Smith’s car, according to state police Investigator Kyle Kirby.

“The screen had gone dark, but apparently Mr. Smith hit the device while reaching across for something, and the screen popped up, which is common with those kinds of electronic devices,” Kirby said. “(Snickles) saw an image that may have been considered child pornography.”

The trooper confirmed with Smith that it was his electronic device, Kirby said. After checking his driver’s license, Snickles determined that Smith was a registered sex offender.

“(Snickles) did a great job and secured the items as evidence pending an investigation,” Kirby said. “A lot of people could have overlooked that and not thought twice about it, but he paid attention to the situation and what the history was when he ran the driver’s data. He kind of broke open the case for us.”

Police talked to Smith the next day, and he declined their request to review the electronic devices, so they applied for and obtained a search warrant, Kirby said. Numerous images of child pornography were eventually located on the devices.

Before Smith was arrested on those charges, however, he was arrested two more times for drunk driving. The first was on Dec. 13 in the town of Moriah, where he lives, and the second was on Dec. 19 in the town of Williston, Vermont, on Interstate 89. He’s due in court Tuesday on the Vermont charge.

“Since Oct. 30, he’s had three (drunk driving arrests), and all three have been above 0.30 percent (blood alcohol content),” Kirby said.

In each DWI case, Smith was either released of his own recognizance or released on bail to appear in court at a later date.

Police ultimately obtained an arrest warrant for Smith on the child pornography charges. He was out of the state for a period of time and was arrested Monday, the first day he returned to the state, Kirby said.

Smith was charged with promoting an obscene performance of a child and possession of an obscene performance by a child, both class D felonies. He was arraigned in town of Keene court and remanded to the Essex County Jail in Lewis in lieu of $25,000 cash bail or $50,000 bond.

Police have said Smith was a registered sex offender and had been arrested in Rhode Island, Louisiana and Vermont for possession of child pornography and child molestation. When the Enterprise reviewed the online sex offender registries in those states, however, Smith’s name wasn’t listed in any of them.

Kirby said he couldn’t explain why Kirby wasn’t listed on those registries because he didn’t know what their statutes are for identifying sex offenders. In New York, only level 2 and 3 offenders are named in the state’s online registry.