Police: Youth Counselor Tried To Meet With Teen For Sex
Jan 25, 2019, 5:51 PM | Updated: 10:30 pm
LAYTON, Utah – A counselor for youth being treated for anxiety has been arrested after police said he tried to meet up with a 13-year-old girl online for sex.
Officials with the Layton Police Department said 26-year-old Kevin Jeffs shared texts, chats and sexts with someone he thought was a young girl. Instead, it was a police detective.
“We have a couple of investigators that do this type of work regularly, and are affiliated with the FBI’s child exploitation task force,” said Lieutenant Travis Lyman.
Lyman said Jeffs eventually asked to meet up with the person he thought was the 13-year-old.
“The communication back and forth was fairly graphic in nature, with some specifics about what this meet would involve,” Lyman said. “An arrangement was made for him to come to an address here in Layton, where he thought he was coming to meet this young girl.”
Instead of a teenage girl, Layton police officers were waiting for Jeffs. Lyman said Jeffs tried to say he only intended to help the teen.
“(Jeffs) said that he didn’t intend to go and have sex with her. It was more just to go scare her, and make her understand how risky her behavior was,” Lyman explained.
Detectives later learned that Jeffs was employed as a youth counselor at Waypoint Academy in Huntsville. It’s a treatment center that helps teens overcome issues with anxiety.
Lyman said it appeared that Jeffs did not have any illicit interactions with clients, or any real victims.
Officials from Waypoint Academy did not return phone calls made by KSL Friday.
Jeffs was taken into custody and booked into the Davis County Jail on suspicion of enticing a teen by internet or text.
