Box Elder judge arrested, accused of sexually enticing minors on chat app
A Box Elder County judge has been arrested and accused of enticing minors through sexual conversations on a chat app.
Kevin Robert Christensen, 64, was booked into jail Thursday for investigation of enticing a minor for sexual activity, dealing in materials harmful to minors, and attempted sexual exploitation of a minor. Christensen is a judge in Utah's 1st District Justice Court.
FBI investigators discovered on Feb. 28 that an individual in Box Elder County "was using the internet-based chatting application KIK to communicate with others about sexually abusing children, sexually exploiting children and enticing children," a police booking affidavit says.
The individual was later identified as Christensen, police said, and multiple suspicious chat threads were found on the KIK account.
In a chat on Nov. 2, Christensen was talking to a user who said she was 13 years old and he "directs the conversation toward sexual topics and engages in graphic sexual chats with the child," the affidavit alleges. He is also accused of sending a graphic video of a man.
"After engaging in graphic sexual chats with the child, Christensen then states that the chat was merely fantasy. The child expresses confusion into why Christensen would say that. There is no evidence in the chat that the conversation was fantasy or that the parties were engaged in a role-play," police wrote in the affidavit.
In a separate chat on Sept. 3, Christensen is accused of communicating with a user who said she was 16 years old. Christensen and the girl engaged in graphic sexual conversations where he praised her body after receiving pictures from her and then sent explicit pictures to her, according to the arrest report.
"At this time, there is extensive evidence suggesting that the defendant has communicated with multiple underage people online," the affidavit states. "In other chats with adults, he expresses sexual interest in young children and solicits (child sexual abuse material) from those people."
The report also says there is evidence showing Christensen has engaged in distributing and receiving child sexual abuse material. In other chats, Christensen allegedly made "multiple references" to sexually abusing other children. Police said those allegations are being investigated.
"Evidence of these offenses were found in the recovered chat, and the descriptions of these offenses were vivid, detailed and numerous," the affidavit says.
In regards to Christensen's job as a sitting justice court judge, the arresting officer wrote, "The position of trust he holds in the community and the actions he undertook while in this position significantly undermine the confidence of the community in the legitimacy of the criminal justice system."
Christensen was booked into the Davis County Jail on Thursday, and police have requested that he be held without bail.
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