Provo woman arrested on suspicion of sexual abuse, trafficking of her child
A Provo woman was arrested after detectives received a cyber tip alleging she was sexually abusing a child later identified as her own daughter and also uploading content online, the Provo Police Department announced in a news release Friday afternoon.
Following the approval of an arrest warrant, the 38-year-old woman was taken into custody and interviewed by police on Thursday, per the release. She was later booked into the Utah County Jail on a multitude of felony charges.
The Daily Herald is not identifying the woman to preserve the privacy of the alleged victim.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, the woman was arrested on suspicion of human trafficking of a child (42 possible counts), aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor (30 counts), sodomy on a child (two counts) and aggravated sexual abuse of a child (two counts), all potential first-degree felonies. As of Friday evening, formal criminal charges had not yet been filed against the woman.
The charging document states that the tip was received through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC. Attached to the tip were files believed to be child sexual abuse material that had been uploaded to an account on the instant messaging app Kik that allegedly belonged to the woman.
Account information provided by the service to authorities included a username and email address that NCMEC and police linked to the woman, according to the affidavit. The document notes that NCMEC used the suspect’s Facebook account to determine that they had “access to a child that appears visually similar to the child depicted within the uploaded files.”
The charging document also states that the woman told police she uses the instant messaging app for “adult sex talk,” and that she later told investigators she had taken pictures and videos of the victim and shared them with another suspect, identified in the release as Chris Seamann.
Seamann, a 52-year-old registered sex offender, was arrested in Mesquite, Nevada, on Friday morning and an extradition warrant for Utah has been requested, per the release from Provo police. He was charged Friday in 4th District Court with sodomy on a child and rape of a child, first-degree felonies; three counts of sexual abuse of a child, second-degree felonies; and lewdness involving a child, a third-degree felony.
The woman reportedly told police she had met with Seamann in person “around 10 times,” beginning when her daughter was “5 or 6 years old” and claimed he would sexually assault her on these occasions. She also told police that he allegedly would pay her for the creation/sharing of child sexual abuse material, some of which depicted her performing sex acts on her child, according to the affidavit.
She told police that the most recent in-person abuse reportedly involving Seamann occurred Sept. 3 in Springville, per the charging document.