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MIDVALE — A Midvale man has been arrested after police say he admitted to saving multiple gigabytes of child pornography files on his computer, and even used child porn pictures for his desktop background and screen saver.
Jared Charles Putnam, 43, was charged Friday in 3rd District Court with 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony.
The investigation into Putnam by the Utah Attorney General's Office began in October when he was detected sharing child pornography, according to charging documents. The IP address was traced to Putnam's home in Midvale where a search warrant was served in January.
"When asked if he had an idea of why the officers where there, (Putnam) said, 'You are here for me.' When asked why, he said, 'Well I'm an idiot who downloads child porn,'" according to charging documents.
Putnam further told investigators that he was "very aware" that he was committing a crime, and that he tried to stop briefly, but started viewing child pornography again a couple of years ago, the charges state.
Investigators found over 35,000 pictures and 250 videos in a file on his computer where Putnam said there would be child pornography stored, according to the charges.
"He admitted to saving multiple gigabytes of files onto his computer. The files depicted children between the ages of 4-14 years old," according to a police booking affidavit. "Upon review of his computer, files of child pornography were found on the screen in the settings folder. There were options to choose child pornography files as his desktop background. Putnam admitted to using child pornography for his desktop background and his screen saver."
