Box Elder judge accused of child sex crimes
Mar 7, 2025, 2:44 PM | Updated: Mar 8, 2025, 1:31 am
Kevin Robert Christensen pictured during his time as a sitting judge at Box Elder County Justice Court, where he was appointed in 1996. Christensen was arrested after a police investigation revealed he had been sending sexual communication online to underage teens and solicited child sexual abuse imagery from them. (Utah State Courts)
(Utah State Courts)
SALT LAKE CITY — A sitting judge in the Box Elder County Justice Court was arrested Thursday after police said they uncovered evidence he committed child sex crimes.
A probable cause statement for the arrest said 64-year-old Kevin Robert Christensen was suspected of two counts of enticing a minor, two counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and two counts of dealing materials harmful to a minor — all felonies.
The statement said the investigation began on Feb. 28, with agents from the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force learning about Christensen using the chat platform KIK to talk about sexually abusing children.
“While reviewing the chats recovered from the suspect KIK account, multiple chat threads of interest were found,” the statement said.
According to police, investigators found one chat where Christensen talked to another user who said she was 13 years old. In the chat, he “directs the conversation towards sexual topics and engages in graphic sexual chats with the child,” the statement said.
In another chat, with a girl who said she was 16, Christensen engaged in a “graphic sexual conversation with the child” and likely sent her explicit photos of himself, although investigators weren’t able to see the pictures, the statement said.
“At this time, there is extensive evidence suggesting that the defendant has communicated with multiple underage people online,” the statement said. “There is also evidence supporting that the defendant has engaged in distributing and receiving Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) over the Internet. These actions show that the defendant is a clear danger to the community.”
The statement said Christensen “has special privileges to fly anywhere in the world for free,” making him a danger to flee prosecution if released on bail.
“The position of trust he holds in the community and the actions he undertook while in this position significantly undermine the confidence of the community in the legitimacy of the criminal justice system,” the statement said.
A judge granted an order to hold Christensen without bail due to the evidence provided by police, according to court documents. He is being held at the Davis County Jail.
A bio for Christensen on the Utah State Courts website said he “often speaks to various youth and civic groups about the structure and function of the court system.”
KSL Legal Analyst Greg Skordas indicated this should not have an impact on Christensen’s prior cases, if the accusations are unrelated to cases heard in his courtroom.
“He’s a misdemeanor court judge, traffic court, that kind of thing,” Skordas said. “So I don’t think that these charges alone would cause any interruption to any of the cases he’s heard or done.”
Skordas said the courts will probably bring out a substitute judge to take on his case load until this issue is resolved.
The Utah State Courts are not commenting on this case at this time.
Heather Peterson contributed to this story.
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