Tremonton resident and former employee of Brigham Young University Idaho Collin Hawkins was booked in the Box Elder County Jail on 20 counts of sexual exploitation of a child on Monday, June 2, at about 2 p.m., according to arresting officer Michelle Cluff of the Tremonton-Garland Police Department. The arrest follows an investigation that has been ongoing since last November, sparked by a CyberTip linking him to a suspicious Kik account.
Cluff was assigned the case in mid-January of this year and confirmed that some of the images linked to the account included child sex abuse material. Over the next several weeks she obtained further evidence of harmful materials as well as tracking warrants to identify the suspect and location connected to the account.
“During this same time frame, I became aware of several other CyberTips reported from Kik, alleging the same type of images all from similar usernames/emails/IP addresses,” Cluff wrote.
Cluff requested and received a search warrant on Sunday, June 1, where two phones were reviewed and confirmed to belong to Hawkins.
“I informed him I had a warrant for evidence of [child sexual abuse material]. I asked if that was surprising to him, and he said that it was not,” she wrote in the probable cause statement.
Both phones contained multiple instances of child sex abuse material.
“Due to the amount of individual images and videos found between the phones, Kik return and chats, as well as the amount of children in each video, I informed him he was being arrested on 20 2nd Degree felony counts of Sexual Exploitation of a Child,” Cluff said. “If anything, I believe this is a generously underestimated amount.”
Investigating officers found Hawkins to be an out of state professor at Brigham Young University-Idaho. University relations confirmed that he did work at the university teaching Russian, but was no longer employed there. The timeframe of his employment at the university is unclear at this time.
Hawkins is known to travel between Utah and Idaho regularly, and as a professor for BYU-I, he held a position of trust within the community. There are also minor children living in his residence. As such, Hawkins is being held without bail by the order of Judge Matthew Lorz of the Brigham City District Court.
More updates will be provided as more information is made available.
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