Utah CEO gets 210 days in jail for having 13K files of infant & child…
archived 16 May 2020 02:00:44 UTC
A judge sentenced admitted pedophile and former Utah CEO Douglas Saltsman to 210 days in jail and 48 months probation on Thursday for possessing more than 13,000 files of graphic child pornography, some of which involved rape and bestiality.
Saltsman was facing one to 15 years in prison, and a $10,000 fine for each of the three second-degree felonies, of which he pleaded guilty.
Saltsman, 40, was originally facing 11 charges related to the seizure of more than 13,000 files of graphic child pornography in August 2019.
Newly revealed in court Thursday was the fact that some of the child pornography files Saltsman admitted to viewing and sexually gratifying himself to featured bestiality.
Considered by many to be a "computer genius," Saltsman was the founder of a now-defunct blockchain and cryptocurrency company which was based in Sandy.
Judge Douglas Hogan, however, suspended those recommendations, giving Saltsman 210 days in jail, saying:
During the sentencing, prosecutor Cynthia Poulsen pointed out that in his pre-sentencing evaluation, Saltsman only talked about himself and how the charges affected him.
There was never any mention of the victims, the prosecution told Judge Hogan.
Judge Hogan allowed Saltsman to address the court, which is within his rights.
During his sentencing, Saltsman said:
The details of the sordid case began when Saltsman was first busted by police on May 7, 2019, after searching his home and seizing his electronic devices.
Police submitted the child pornography files to the law enforcement portal of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, where 279 of the submitted files depicted known identified child victims.
Police first investigated child pornography when they were alerted to an internet provider address that was sharing child pornography using a peer-to-peer file-sharing program.
The first file, according to documents, was a compilation video of prepubescent girls under 8, some as young as toddlers, being raped.
Investigators obtained a search warrant and the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, known as ICAC, helped execute the search.
According to documents, child sex abuse imagery involving toddlers and prepubescent children was found on a laptop, a black computer, an SSD storage device and an SD card. The children were bound and raped. Police also found "disturbing videos of Douglas Saltsman engaged (in) sexual intercourse with several unconscious women," on the seized devices.
They also said they found a "clandestine drug lab of some sort" in a downstairs bedroom closet and called the Sandy Fire Department and hazmat team to make sure the chemical lab was not a public safety hazard.
Saltsman made his first court appearance in December 2019.
