Woods Cross man pleads guilty to enticing minor in child pornography case

SALT LAKE CITY — A Woods Cross man who police say was an administrator for several online child pornography groups pleaded guilty Tuesday to enticing a minor.

Landon Germaine was arrested in May 2020 and charged with sexual exploitation of children and enticing a minor. In exchange for pleading guilty to enticing a minor, prosecutors dropped the sexual exploitation of children charge, court records show.

The charge Germaine pleaded guilty to carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life, the plea document states. Germaine's sentencing is set for January.

Agents from the FBI Child Exploitation task force served a search warrant at Germaine's residence in 2020 after receiving information that sexually explicit images of an 11-year-old girl had been sent to Germaine on a mobile app, according to a police affidavit.

A complaint filed in 2020 states that the girl lived in Arkansas and her mother, in 2018, reported finding explicit images and videos that her daughter was sending to various usernames through the apps Periscope and Kik. Police say Germaine was later connected to two of these usernames.

The mother contacted authorities a second time in 2020 after finding that her daughter was again communicating with the same usernames via Telegram, Snapchat and Periscope, the complaint states.

"Preliminary forensic review on scene on May 27, 2020, uncovered that Germaine possessed over 100 sexually explicit images/videos of minors ranging in age from approximately 8 to 16 years of age," the federal complaint states. "Germaine's digital media had evidence of numerous chats on various applications with female children. ... In these chats, Germaine repeatedly sought and asked for sexually explicit videos of these minor females."

Police said Germaine indicated he was a member and administrator for "numerous other known child pornography groups on social media applications and on the internet."

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