HONOLULU -- A man who set up an orphanage in Nepal and travels the world offering "drum therapy" is in prison in Hawaii, charged with making his own child pornography.

It may be a shocking case, but the charges could also be thrown out.

The case began at Hilo airport last year. Simon Jasper McCarty was in Hawaii to provide one of his drum-circle team-building seminars.

When TSA screeners removed his laptop from his checked suitcase, what looked to them like several photos of nude children fell out, officials said. They called Hilo police.

The 36-year-old British citizen was arrested immediately. The FBI later found child porn stills images and videos on his laptop, including about 60 prosecutors said were self-produced, showing McCarty with three different pre-pubescent boys.

On McCarty's MySpace page, he posted videos of the Pegasus Children's Project he founded in Nepal. There is a photo of him surrounded by orphans. Court documents do not say whether orphans were used for pornography.

McCarty is also the founder and chief facilitator of a company called Talking Drums, which provides consciousness and team-building corporate seminars using drums and other percussion instruments. He was in Hawaii for a seminar at Mokuleia.

Despite the apparently strong evidence, the entire case against McCarty is in jeopardy because the TSA screeners are not supposed to actively look for criminal evidence other than weapons or bombs. In McCarty's case, the screener admitted going beyond that by reading some of the material in an envelop in McCarty's luggage before calling superiors.

In a hearing, Judge Michael Seabright said, "It's unclear to me if she saw nude pictures before or after she exceeded the scope of that search."

"This is a hard case. You're not dealing with like a gun or drugs, something that's immediately recognizable… my inclination is to suppress this case," Seabright said.

If the judge finds the TSA search was illegal, that means all the evidence, including the videos of McCarty having sex with boys would be thrown out and could not be used against him.

The judge indicated that his ruling could come out in the next few days.