Ohio man arrested in Utah on child sex abuse charges

An Ohio man faces federal charges of child sexual abuse after investigators say they found evidence he abused children in Ohio and Utah, according to a news release issued Tuesday.

Wade S. Christofferson, 72, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on an interstate hold Thursday night by an FBI agent. He appeared in U.S. District Court in Utah today, when the charges were unsealed.

Christofferson is charged with attempting to sexually exploit a minor and with coercion and enticement, according to the release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Ohio.

Christofferson is a younger brother of President D. Todd Christofferson, second counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The news release stated that a criminal complaint merely contains allegations and that defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.

Wade Christofferson lives in Dublin, Ohio. The charging documents say that on Nov. 12, the Dublin Police Department received a report that alleged that Christofferson sexually abused an Ohio minor.

Wade Christofferson allegedly abused the child in person 15 to 20 times, the documents state.

“He also allegedly engaged in a sexually explicit FaceTime call with a second minor victim and sent coded letters to her Utah home that referenced sexual activity,” the news release stated. “Christofferson also committed hands-on sexual abuse of that child as well,” the news release alleged.

The complaint affidavit states that Wade Christofferson allegedly taught the minor Utah victim code words for body parts and was allegedly overheard on a FaceTime call using those code words to ask the victim to expose body parts.

The charging documents included hand-written messages deploying the code words as a game.

Dublin police searched Wade Christofferson’s Ohio residence the same day they received the report of alleged abuse.

“They discovered an area of the home that was accessed by a child size door with ‘H POTTER’ written on it,” the news release stated. “Inside the modified attic crawl space area, officers discovered children’s writing on the walls and a mattress, pillows and blankets on the floor.”

Christofferson is expected to be extradited from Utah to the Southern District of Ohio, according to the news release.

The charges were announced by:

• Dominick S. Gerace II, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.
• Adam Lawson, the FBI’s acting special agent in charge for the Cincinnati Division.
• Dublin Police Chief Justin Paez.
• Other members of the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.

Gerace said three Utah law enforcement agencies made significant contributions to the case:

• The FBI Salt Lake City Division.
• The Payson, Utah, Police Department.
• The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah.

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This story will be updated.