Provo mother arrested for sexual exploitation and trafficking of her own child – Theforgegastown

PROVO, Utah — A Provo mother has been arrested for allegedly sexually harassing and trafficking her 10-year-old daughter. Court documents show the abuse has been going on for several years.

The 38-year-old woman was arrested on Wednesday and is charged with two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, 29 counts of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, 41 counts of human trafficking of a child and two counts of sodomy of a child.

Provo police received a tip via the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) hotline that a mother was sexually abusing her daughter and uploading the videos to Kik, an instant messaging app. The platform then sent the user’s uploaded files to NCMEC, which also contained the user’s account information, confirming that he or she was in Provo.

Using the information provided, detectives were able to identify the person who uploaded the videos as Provo’s mother.

The woman agreed to speak to police after a warrant was served for her arrest at her home, where she said she had been using Kik to engage in “adult sexual conversations,” including sending sexual videos. When investigators asked her if anyone else had ever been in the videos, she admitted to using her daughter in the videos as well.

The mother told investigators the messages were a way to get positive attention from someone who wasn’t bullying her, adding that she had met a man, identified as “Chris,” about 10 times in the past. She said that when she and her daughter met “Chris,” he sexually abused the girl, starting when she was 5 or 6 years old.

“Chris” paid the woman money, usually $20 a night, she told detectives, to create documents relating to her and her daughter and mail them for a fee.

When detectives searched the mother’s phone, they reportedly found hundreds of videos, including one of a baby that the woman said was sent to her by another man named “Shawn.”

When detectives asked her when she and Chris last sexually abused her daughter, she said it happened on Tuesday in Springville, when they met Chris in a hotel room in exchange for a laptop and $125.

The woman is now being held without bail by order of the court.