CEDAR CITY — A Cedar City man is facing multiple felony charges after investigators allegedly found images of child pornography on his phone.
Jeremiah Ronald Daws, 27, was arrested on Feb. 9 and booked into Iron County Jail on suspicion of 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony. He has since been released after posting $5,000 bail.
According to the probable cause statement filed in support of Daws’s arrest, Cedar City Police received a referral in January from the state Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Following up on the referral, police contacted Daws at his residence in the southwestern part of Cedar City.
“I advised him I needed to take custody of his phone and he provided it to me,” the arresting officer wrote in the affidavit. After being read his Miranda rights, Daws provided the officer with the passcode to the phone and agreed to speak without an attorney present. Court records show that he also signed a consent form authorizing the phone to be searched.
“I opened the gallery folder and observed more than 10 pictures of prepubescent children nude and performing sex acts,” the officer wrote in the affidavit.
Daws was then placed under arrest and taken to jail, after being medically cleared at the hospital.
Daws’ initial appearance in 5th District Court was originally scheduled for Feb. 13, but was rescheduled for two weeks later. At Daws’s initial court appearance on Monday, Judge Matthew L. Bell appointed public defender Jeffery Slack to represent the defendant.
Daws’s next scheduled appearance is a roll call hearing on April 3.
This report is based on statements from court documents and law enforcement officials 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.
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