A former youth minister was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for soliciting material relating to the sexual exploitation of children, federal officials said.

United States Attorney Robert Pitman and FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Morgan announced that Joe Tapia was sentenced to prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release. 

As KFOX14 previously reported, Jay Mortenson, an FBI agent specializing in Internet crimes against children, said Tapia, 47, filmed and took pictures of two 15-year-old boys, and both teens told the agent that Tapia grabbed and rubbed their private parts. 

Mortenson had said that information was given to them voluntarily by Tapia. He said they were initially investigating Tapia after a tip from Tapia's now former co-workers. 

Federal officials said Tapia pleaded guilty in October, and the former Excel Learning Center admissions service representative admitted to have conducted sexually explicit instant messenger chats with multiple minors on both his work and home computers. 

Tapia also admitted to recording video and images of two children while they were changing clothes before a church performance. He also said he used those recordings to solicit other sexually explicit images of children, federal officials said.

The El Paso Catholic Diocese told KFOX14 in May 2011 that Tapia was a youth minister at San Jose Church. They said he passed a background check and also took safe environment and sexual harassment training.