Sunday, April 06, 2014

Former Officer Jeremy Rose Charged with Sexual Exploitation of Minor

Former Tremonton police officer Jeremy Rose has been charged with 15 offenses in the collection of thousands of photos of a teenage girl in various stages of undress.
 
Rose was arrested and booked into the Box Elder County Jail Thursday, said Utah Attorney General's Office spokeswoman Missy Larsen, and is scheduled for arraignment April 7 before 1st District Judge Ben Hadfield.
 
Rose, 37, is charged with nine counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony, and two counts of voyeurism, a third-degree felony. He's also charged with single counts of dealing in material harmful to a minor, communications fraud, obstruction of justice, and stalking, all felonies but the stalking, a class A misdemeanor.
 
While employed by the Tremonton force, Rose convinced a then-15-year-old Tremonton girl to pose semi-nude for photos he said he would sell for her on the Internet and to private buyers, according to charging documents. That was a ruse in order to collect the photos for himself, the charges say.
 
He also allegedly hid a camera in the girl's bedroom to record video of her dressing and undressing.
 
Rose is being held in lieu of $145,000 bail. The case was handed off by the Box Elder County Attorney's Office last year to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest since prosecutors there had worked with Rose for years.
 
Rose resigned from the Tremonton department in July after investigation began by the Attorney General's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which was assisted by Tremonton police.
 
The case features a 15-page probable cause affidavit, a document rarely longer than a page.
It details Rose's apparent obsession with the teen beginning in early 2012 and continuing through much of last year until his initial arrest in June. Due to the complex investigation detailed in the affidavit, the charges weren't filed until Thursday by the attorney general's office.  Rose was a 12-year veteran on the Tremonton force.
 
Rose set up fake email accounts and links to a bogus online company where he told her he was selling the photos, the affidavit says.
 
He sent emails under assumed names from the fake company encouraging her in her nude and semi-nude posing for photos with Rose, as well as those she took herself and sent to the fake Internet site, according to the affidavit.
 
They told her she could make more money by wearing less clothing, one of the emails said.
Investigators were informed last June by Rose's wife that he had confessed to her and other family members, according to the affidavit.
 
The thousands of images of the minor were found on Rose's several cell phones "as well the laptop computer he was assigned through his employment at the Tremonton Police Department," it reads.
 
The document refers to Rose paying the girl $300 for her pictures and buying her an iPhone for her picture-taking.

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