LOGAN — A 41-year-old South Jordan man has confessed to trying to meet up with a 9 year old girl in Logan to have sex. Joseph Thomas Dunlop has accepted a plea deal that will likely send him to prison.
Dunlop appeared Oct. 9 in Logan’s 1st District Court. He pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor and solicitation to commit sodomy on a child, both first-degree felonies. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed three remaining charges.
In March, Dunlop began messaging a Logan City undercover officer. The officer was posing as the father of a young girl on an internet forum related to incest.
The officer reportedly received a message from Dunlop, expressing a desire to meet for the purpose of sexually abusing the supposed 9 year old girl. He described and discussed specific details, including formulating a plan of meeting to perform certain illegal acts.
As the messages continued, Dunlop described to the undercover officer how he had molested a 1 year old girl multiple times, describing the abuse in detail. He also offered to bring the baby girl with him to Logan, so that he could sexually abuse both girls.
Police report, Dunlop also sent a video of a young girl between 5 to 7 years old being raped by an adult male.
Dunlop had planned to meet at a predetermined location but never showed. He also stopped messaging the undercover officer, court papers explained.
Due to concerns that a young girl might be in danger, police were able to secure an expedited warrant, to obtain the IP address of the chats. The messages tracked to Dunlop’s home, where police served a warrant to the residence and located a 1 year old girl.
Dunlop was taken into custody for questioning. He reportedly admitted to chatting with the officer about meeting up to sexually abuse the 9 year old girl. He also confessed to sending police child pornography, which he claimed to be viewing 50 to 60 times in the past several months.
Dunlop also told police how he had sexually abused the 1 year old girl multiple times. He said, “children are not safe around him,” the arresting officer reported.
During last Wednesday’s hearing, defense attorney Douglas Thompson explained how his client is still working on a plea deal in the Salt Lake County case that involves 11 charges including aggravated sexual abuse of a child. He said as part of a global resolution to both cases, prosecutors will ask for the defendant to be ordered to serve a maximum term of five-years-to-life in prison.
Judge Brian Cannell accepted the plea deal and ordered Dunlop to remain in jail and complete a presentence report about his criminal history. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Dec. 4.