SPANISH FORK — A man who used to work for the Child Protection Division of the Utah Attorney General’s Office has been arrested and accused of possessing child pornography.
Gary ___, 66, of Spanish Fork, was arrested Wednesday by Utah County sheriff’s deputies for investigation of six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.
The investigation began Aug. 4 when investigators received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of suspected child pornography being uploaded on a social media app. Police say the uploaded explicit images were of children under the age of 10.
On Wednesday, deputies went to Gary’s home to serve a search warrant.
“Gary is a retired assistant attorney general from the Utah Attorney General’s Office where he worked in the Child Protection Division and prosecuted crimes against children,” detectives noted in a police booking affidavit.
Police have requested that Gary be held in the Utah County Jail without the possibility of posting bail, pending the formal filing of criminal charges because of the “egregiousness of the crime” and also because young children often visit his house, the affidavit alleges.
Oh what a tangled web we’ve woven here.
With such a large on ramp and no real off ramps, I’m waiting for the day where a substantially large number of people must register.
Proving once again that the registry is not going to stop any of this.
40 comments at ksl.com and a few looking for compassion for the guy including a few siting it was the stresses of the job he had
I wonder how many times he might have viewed such material during the course of his career as a prosecutor and whether that may have altered his mindset in any way.
What is sad and disturbing is this is probably one of the guys like my DA who gave a press release after convicting me and was totally blowing things out of proportion and just inflaming everything into hysteria causing the fear in the public, which in turn poiticians inflme to get votes, and of course the media runs with it. All the while people like him in that position could have been doing a lot of good and making the public aware of the true nature of the online CP epidemic.
Reminds me of when the head of the corruption unit in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office was arrested on corruption charges for helping the district attorney to cover up the crimes being committed by the chief of police
I like stories like this because it shows the vulnerability of people in law enforcement to becoming sex offenders themselves. I think of these people that do these internet stings and how it must effect them, negatively mentally. Then again there are some really demented people that could be police. To me and the many law enforcement people I have met in my life and read about and watched shows about; there is nothing worse than a law enforcement person gone bad. Wonder what the statistic is for law enforcement that commit suicide after being accused of a sex offence; I imagine that number is high. Would people not commit suicide if they were accused of a sex offence; if it were not for the fact that so call sex offenders have their constitutional rights and human rights taken from them? Would they not commit suicide if it were not for the fact that all so called sex offenders endure cruel and unusual punishment? Like I always say when our country stepped over that line with dehumanizing sex offence laws; that marks the beginning of the end of America. Why, for politics? For votes? Maybe we have become like Rome in it’s last days of the coliseums. What ever the delusional, disgusting, reason we decided on bazar, Nazi like, sex offence laws on our citizens; is permissible, history shows; that is when governments fall.
I wonder what his opinion of offenders caught with CP is now considering he is one of them…does he a have new outlook and perspective or is he going to separate himself from the rest and make himself look less bad than the rest?
I can identify with this guy.
I was a criminal defense investigator for 25 years. During the course of my career, I assisted defense attorneys in a number of federal and state CP cases (although this was a comparatively very small percentage of the criminal cases in which I was involved).
CP cases became increasingly common starting in the late 1990s/early 2000s, with the frequency of these cases increasing as time went on.
As the defense investigator in CP cases, I was tasked by defense attorneys (amongst other things) to examine “the evidence”. I would go to the ICE offices, where the agents would provide me with a computer and a thumb drive, and I would sit there (sometimes for hours) going through/examining each and every image/video. As many people are aware, sentencing in CP cases is dependent upon a number of factors, including the number of images/videos of actual CP, the approximate age of the minor depicted in the image/video, the nature of the act(s) depicted, and other factors. This necessitated the examination of evidence to determine whether or not the allegations would be challenged or contested.
In the mid to late 2000s, I began to “act out”, viewing CP “on my own time”. After a period of time, I was detected, prosecuted, convicted (possession of CP – federal), and sentenced. I lost my PI license and my career. Fortunately, my sentence was comparatively short – just under a year. I do not offer any excuse for my crimes, but it is unquestionable that my exposure to these images was a significant factor contributing to the development of my addiction to CP.
On a lesser note, and to be very clear, I did not enter into my profession with any intent whatsoever of gaining access to CP images. It never crossed my mind. I believe it is incredibly cynical and ignorant to think that people enter into professional careers such as law enforcement, legal profession, investigations, etc. for the purpose of gaining access to CP.
I love the term egregiousness of the crime. Sounds a bit like evil for evil to me in a general way of looking at this. If the person wasn’t a retired AG he would be a basic John Doe but since he is retired it does make a difference and he of all people should know the difference. If one plays’ around with fire you get burned a bit and it does sting.
Well In the past his job was to protect children and some how he got addicted to the images he was exposed too.
I believe he became addicted to CP a long time before he actually resigned from his job, I think he was struggling with it back then.
I just hope at 66 years old he can finally get the help he needs from the Correctional Officers and fellow inmates in prison and when he gets out I hope Megan’s law is Abolished for Tier 1 & 2 offenders
I won’t pass up this satire:
Prosecutors love to say that “pedophiles” are “drawn to jobs where children are abundant”. (Schools, theater, etc.)
Likewise, I think prosecutors and child safety representatives are drawn to minors-as-victim law enforcement jobs because CP is abundant.
Anyone ever thought of that? =)
In a whimsical mood today. Doesn’t mean I don’t take things seriously. I just find few moments be here humor should e avoided. I made jokes at my Mom’s memorial, they killed.
They’ve begun to cannibalize each other. Like fish in a tank you forget to feed for a couple days. Soon there will be just one person in the entire Justice department. One enormously fat Deputy AG with a large pile of human bones shoved under their desk.
We should still check their laptop for SCAM (Super Confusing Alarming Material).
Remember, SCAM always means predator. We should in no way ever question that, nor be concerned in any way by how often we find people with SCAM. We should just assume that the Nation has produced tens of thousands of additional child predators over the last 15 or so years, and be ok with that.
Be too afraid to question anything! Use hated to augment fear as needed!