Disgraced former City Council member Dan Halloran, who was busted in Miami on federal child porn charges last year, was also the subject of a child porn probe back in 2010 while he was a sitting member of the Council, records reviewed by the Daily News show.

While the 2010 probe never led to an arrest, it did land his name on a watch list — and that defunct investigation spurred customs officials to seize his phone when he arrived at Miami International Airport on March 29, 2025, finding about 1,000 child porn files in a hidden folder, according to the feds.

That seizure is now a key issue in his criminal trial, with Halloran arguing that he was coerced into giving the officers the passcode to his phone.

Halloran — a Queens Republican who served a single term in the Council from 2010 to 2014 before a bribery conviction and 10-year prison sentence ended his political career — was flying home from Cuba to New York with his girlfriend when Customs and Border Protection officers stopped him during a layover at Miami International Airport, according to court filings.

One of those officers, Alexis Reyes, testified in a hearing earlier this year that he flagged Halloran before the flight landed because of an expired “lookout” alert indicating he was “previously investigated for downloading and distributing child pornography in 2010, and that the investigation was also closed that same year,” according to a report by a Florida federal judge from earlier this year.

He set up a new “lookout” alert in the system, and when Halloran landed, he ushered Halloran into an interview for a secondary inspection.

Halloran, now a scuba instructor, told the agent he was in Cuba for a diving trip with his students, and Reyes asked him about his electronic devices.

When the officer asked for Halloran’s passcode, he initially refused, saying he did not “feel comfortable” giving it up because he had a “previous conviction,” reads the report by Florida Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid. But he ultimately acquiesced, after Reyes and other officers gave him a “Tear Sheet” explaining how he was required to give them the information on his phone as part of a border search.

Court filings do not contain any additional details about the investigation. Nor do they indicate who conducted the investigation, and do not indicate why the investigation was closed.

Reid’s report recommended the U.S. District Court judge handling Halloran’s case deny his motion to suppress the contents of the phone — and on Tuesday, Halloran’s public defender filed a letter opposing that report.

Lawyer Ashley Kay contended that Halloran refused to give his passcode four separate times, and that the officers and their “Tear Sheet” misstated the law and refused to let him leave — even though he was free to leave without his devices.

Kay also questioned the rationale for stopping Halloran, noting that Reyes put in his inspection report that Halloran was initially flagged for a secondary investigation because he declared he was bringing alcohol to the U.S. from Cuba.

“This contradiction was never resolved by the government and raises questions as to the true genesis and good faith, or lack thereof, of Mr. Halloran’s selection and detention,” she wrote. “In any event, no evidence presented at the hearing amounted to reasonable suspicion or probable cause that — 15 years after an ‘expired lookout’ — Mr. Halloran was committing a specific crime or that evidence of a specific crime would be found on his cell phone.”

Halloran and his lawyer did not return messages seeking comment.

Halloran, once a rising star in the Republican Party in Queens, was convicted in 2014 for his role in two different bribery and corruption schemes. Before his arrest, he was known as the first elected official in New York who practiced Theodism, a neo-pagan religion.

He was sentenced a year later to 10 years in federal prison but served just over half of that time, after his release in June 2020 as part of an effort by the Bureau of Prisons to stop the spread of COVID-19, the Queens Daily Eagle reported at the time.

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