Federal charges pending against Logan sex-offender arrested again for downloading child pornography

Booking photo for Steven W. Viator (Courtesy: Cache County Jail)

LOGAN — Federal charges have been filed against a 38-year-old Logan man, previously convicted of sexually abusing a child, and suspected of downloading child pornography. Steven W. Viator was booked into the Cache County Jail in December after a search warrant was conducted at his apartment.

Viator participated in a virtual hearing in 1st District Court Thursday afternoon, appearing by web conference from jail. He had previously been charged with 20 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony.

Cache County Deputy Attorney Dane Murray told the court that federal charges had recently been filed against Viator. He asked for the state charges to be dismissed without prejudice, meaning they could be refiled at a later date.

Judge Brian Cannell granted prosecutor’s request, paving the way for Viator to be placed in federal custody.

According to an arrest report, in April, agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigations received a tip that an electronic device was sharing child pornography through a social media program. The device was tracked to an apartment complex near 125 W. 800 N.

In December, a search warrant was executed by Logan City police officers. They located several electronic devices containing a large number of sexually explicit images of children.

The report stated that officers questioned Viator after giving him his Miranda Rights. He acknowledged that he had struggled with an “attraction to children for his entire adult life.” He also admitted to using the social media account to regularly trade sexually explicit images of children with other users.

Viator indicated that he would download the images from his phone to his laptop and then save the material to a USB drive, which he kept within his residence.

Officers later located the USB drive in the apartment. It reportedly contained a large amount of sexually explicit images.

Court records show, Viator was convicted of attempted aggravated sex abuse of a child in 2004. He was later sentenced to one year in jail, followed by probation, and ordered to complete sex-offender therapy.

Viator is scheduled to be arraigned on federal charges Jan. 13.


[email protected]

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

I agree to these terms.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.