A Salt Lake County man, who police say worked as a nurse at a pediatric hospital, has been arrested for allegedly uploading and distributing so many child sexual abuse images that he said he lost count.
The man was booked into Salt Lake County jail Tuesday evening, according to the jail’s website. He is being held without bail, following an order signed by Utah 3rd District Judge Adam Mow.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the man has not yet been formally charged. The Salt Lake Tribune typically does not name people accused of crimes until they are.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, his job gave him “access to children who are the same age as the children in the [child sexual abuse material] he distributed.”
According to the court document, a social media company flagged an account where the man had allegedly “uploaded and distributed suspected child sexual abuse material.” The company reported that activity to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in January.
The account’s IP address — the numeric code assigned to each computer that accesses the internet — was given to the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which identified the account’s owner, the court document says.
The task force carried out a residential search warrant Tuesday, the affidavit said. When officers first knocked on his door, he destroyed and hid his phone “in an attempt to hide any evidence,” according to the affidavit.
Later, the document said, the man admitted to sending and receiving the child sexual abuse images — and said he was addicted to such images and has viewed them “for the last couple of years.”
He told law enforcement officers he has distributed the images “more times than he could count, but that it was thousands,” according to the affidavit.
According to the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing, the man graduated with an associate degree in nursing from Utah Valley University in 2022 — and received his license as a registered nurse in March 2023. As of Wednesday, the division had not posted any limitations on the man’s license.