Man twice convicted of minor exploitation accused again of enticing a minor

SOUTH OGDEN — A man who has twice been previously convicted for exploitation crimes has been criminally charged again and accused of sending explicit messages to an undercover profile that he thought was a teenage girl.

Derek Thomas Horne was first arrested at 27 years old in January 2009 when a 14-year-old girl reported he had started sending her explicit messages through MySpace and her cellphone. The two had met at the Roy City Library the previous summer.

"He groomed her to a point where he felt comfortable in giving her messages and asking for things, sexually, that were totally inappropriate," Roy Police Chief Gregory Whinham told KSL in 2009.

When police caught Horne, detectives say he admitted to them he knew what he was doing was wrong. He also thanked them for catching him because he needed help.

He was subsequently charged in 2nd District Court with enticing a minor over the internet, a third-degree felony. A few weeks later, he pleaded guilty to the charge, but it was reduced to a class A misdemeanor, according to court records.

He was sentenced in March 2009 to 365 days in jail, but 275 days were suspended. After he served his 90 days, he was placed on probation for three years. His probation was extended for three months since he owed approximately $1,200 in victim restitution. His probation was officially terminated in June 2012, court records show.

But in 2017, he was arrested again after an online investigation found Horne was communicating on social media with who he believed to be a 13-year-old girl. Horne had shared explicit messages with the alleged girl and arranged to meet with the girl for "sexual purposes," the charges filed in 2nd District Court stated.

On Aug. 10, 2017, he went to the pre-arranged location and was arrested. He admitted to the police that he thought he had been talking to a teen girl, sent messages that were sexual in nature and then deleted the conversations from his phone prior to the meetup, charges said.

The state charges were dismissed in November 2017 when he was indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of coercion and enticement for illegal sexual activity.

The federal charge was amended in January 2018 to use of interstate facility to transmit information regarding a minor. The superseding felony information states Horne used the internet to "knowingly initiate the transmission of the name or electronic mail address of another individual, knowing that such other individual had not attained the age of 16 years, with the intent to entice, encourage, offer and solicit any person to engage in sexual intercourse."

Horne pleaded guilty to that charge then was sentenced in October 2018 to 53 months in federal prison, with credit for the approximate 10 months he had already served in federal custody, followed by 15 years of probation.

In August 2024, Horne had his smartphone removed after he violated his probation by looking at sexually explicit material on the internet. Going forward, he would only be allowed to use a phone with no internet access that was approved by his probation officers, a federal probation report states.

In June 2025, Horne was issued an "IPPC Safe Phone" that was a monitored cell phone with internet access. But after receiving the device, he engaged in "risky online behavior" by looking at images of young women in provocative clothing, engaging in sexual conversations with strangers and accessing explicit websites, a separate probation report from December 2025 states. The report said Horne was reprimanded and certain websites were blocked from his device.

Horne, now 43, was living in Salt Lake City when he was arrested by Weber County deputies on Oct. 11 and accused of attempting to entice a minor.

Prosecutors said Horne initiated communication with an undercover Facebook profile that was portraying a 14-year-old girl. Despite the profile repeatedly reminding Horne of her age, Horne's messages became "increasingly explicit," the charges said.

Horne allegedly asked the girl significantly intimate questions that were inappropriate and sexual in nature, and described his own sexual activity to the girl.

Charges state Horne admitted to police in an interview that he was the man in the messages and that he "possessed and used social media despite knowing he was prohibited from possessing or using social media while on federal probation."

He was charged in 2nd District Court with enticing a minor, a first-degree felony, and violating the sex offender registry, a third-degree felony. Horne pleaded not guilty during a preliminary hearing on Oct. 20 and has his first pre-trial conference on Dec. 1.

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