Suspicion over teen girl posters leads to Salt Lake child porn investigation

SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake man who claims he taught girls gymnastics in California for 20 years is facing criminal charges in a child pornography investigation.

Edward Timothy Wilson, 52, was charged Monday in 3rd District Court with 13 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony.

The investigation began in June when Salt Lake police received a report from a concerned citizen that Wilson had pictures of teen girls on his laptop. Officers responding to his apartment found pictures of teen girls in bikinis on his laptop and “around the apartment were multiple magazines pages, pictures and posters of women (some clothed and some nude), teenage actress posters, and other teenage girls,” according to charging documents.

When asked why he downloaded so many pictures of girls, “Wilson said he downloads the pictures out of habit,” the charges state.

Wilson told police that “he spent 20 years coaching girls gymnastics in San Diego, and that he gets the photos on Pinterest and Instagram. When Wilson is asked the age range of the girls in the photos that he downloads, he replied, ‘Probably 7 to 12. It would be 80% of them,'” the charges state.

Detectives served a search warrant on all of Wilson’s electronic devices and discovered 298 computer-generated images of young girls being sexually abused, 12 computer-generated images of child pornography anime and 55 computer-generated videos of girls being abused, with prosecutors describing them as “disturbing” and “realistic,” according to the charges. “Additionally, 1,258 images of child erotica were located.”

It was 13 photos collected from those 1,258 images of actual children that constitute the 13 felony charges, according to prosecutors.

Court documents do not indicate whether Wilson’s claim of being a gymnastics coach was verified.