Attorney General’s Office takes over case against Hurricane man accused of downloading child rape videos

Composite image with background photo by Matt Gush/iStock/Getty Images Plus and overlay of Internet Crimes Against Children logo courtesy of the Utah Attorney General's Office, St. George News

ST. GEORGE — The Utah Attorney General’s Office has filed charges against a Hurricane man who was the subject of an investigation by local agents with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force earlier this month.

ICAC Task Force. SECURE Strike Force, location and date unspecified | Image courtesy of Utah Attorney General’s Office, St. George News

The case against Nicholas David Kane will be prosecuted by Utah Assistant Attorney General Shelley Coudreaut, according to charging documents filed following the defendant’s arrest at his home in Hurricane on June 10.

Kane was arrested following an investigation conducted by Utah’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, previously reported on by St. George News, comprised of several local law enforcement agencies that began at the end of April.

Through the course of the investigation a search warrant was executed at Kane’s home in Washington County on June 10. The following day 10 felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor were filed in 5th District Court.

Days later, the case was filed by the Utah Attorney General’s Office that includes the 10 sexual exploitation charges.

Court records filed by the attorney general’s office state that when officers told Kane what the search warrant was for, the suspect “became nervous and stated, ‘I understand, well, I have counseling.'”

Filing documents also indicated that while the search was in progress, Kane told officers there would be no sexual abuse imagery on his cell phone, saying, “I deleted it.”

Even so, forensic examiners reportedly found the program used to transfer child pornography files installed on the suspect’s cell phone, as well as files that contained videos depicting the sexual abuse of children.

According to Internet Crimes Against Children Special Agent Sete Aulai, the images found in Kane’s possession included videos of “infants, toddlers and young prepubescent children being hung upside down, raped and sodomized.”

File photo of 5th District Court where federal hearings are held, St. George, Utah, August, 2019 | Photo by Cody Blowers, St. George News

In court filings, the state said that downloading, collecting, viewing and sharing of the sex abuse imagery causes harm to children, as does the sharing of such images.

“The continued circulation and each new publication of the recorded image of sexual abuse inflicted on a child causes a new injury,” Coudreaut noted.

Following the arrest, the Attorney General’s Office requested that Kane be held without bail. In the event of his release, the state requested that he is to have no contact with anyone under the age of 18, which includes his own young children.

Ed. Note: A new Utah law generally prohibits the release of arrest booking photos until after a conviction is obtained.  

This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2021, all rights reserved.

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