A Utah pediatrician who investigators believe sexually targeted young boys in Internet chat rooms pleaded not guilty Friday to one federal charge of attempting to entice a minor to engage in sex.
Dr. Brent Blackburn, 35, who voluntarily surrendered his medical license last week to the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing, was indicted by a grand jury Thursday for allegedly soliciting what he believed was a 13-year-old boy to have sex with him. Investigators say the Internet chat room conversation took place Sept. 18 and the boy was actually a Salt Lake police officer posing as the child.After Blackburn propositioned the detective, believing he was a 13-year-old boy, the two agreed to meet behind Highland High School, said Salt Lake Police Lt. Phil Kirk. When a "young-looking" officer arrived, Kirk said Blackburn exposed himself to the officer and was immediately arrested.
Records show Blackburn was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail Sept. 18 for investigation of attempted sodomy of a child. He was released the next day after posting bond.
Blackburn had a private practice at the Red Butte Clinic in Salt Lake City and had privileges at LDS Hospital. He also worked at the Ogden Clinic in Weber County from August 1996 to February 1998. State licensing officials plan to investigate the allegations against Blackburn and may take further disciplinary action against him.
Blackburn will remain free until his Dec. 8 trial before U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball. However, Magistrate Judge Samuel Alba ordered Blackburn Friday not to have any unsupervised contact with minors or have any minors in his home. He also can only access the Internet for business purposes or to e-mail family members. He cannot visit any Internet chat rooms. His attorney said Blackburn's only source of income now that he has surrendered his medical license is computer work.
"Restricting all Internet access would be unreasonable," said attorney Mary Corporon.
Salt Lake Police Sgt. Ken Hansen said the police officer was on the Internet in a chat room when he was propositioned by Blackburn. It is routine in this particular vice unit for the detectives to cruise the Internet looking for potential child sex crimes, targeting everything from child pornography to solicitation.
Federal prosecutors hinted in court Friday that they are furthering the investigation into Blackburn's Internet activities. They have seized his computer and are seeking a search warrant to retrieve information from the computer. They hope to find computer data showing what chat rooms Blackburn may have visited, e-mail related to those chat-room conversations, files he might have downloaded and Web sites he has visited.
Corporon asked Alba for a hearing to discuss how investigators would retrieve the information from the computer, saying the information could possibly be altered through the retrieval process. But Alba denied her motion -- ruling that there are methods for accurately retrieving computer information.
If convicted of the federal offense, Blackburn could be sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $250,000.