OGDEN — Authorities have seized the computer hard drive, disks and other items from the apartment of an Ogden man accused of engaging in numerous sex acts with a young girl in Oklahoma.

South Ogden police have also spent the past week interviewing neighbors living in the man's complex to find other possible victims, said detective Trent Olsen. Police expect to complete their interviews by Tuesday.

"So far we haven't turned anything up," Olsen said. "He's a very secluded individual, from what we can gather."

"I very seldom saw him," said Marianne Brown, manager of the apartment complex where the man has lived since last July. "I've never seen anybody even go to that apartment."

Police who arrested the man in Oklahoma did find a videotape in one of his bags that authorities believe was filmed in his Ogden apartment, according to a search warrant affidavit.

The tape contains footage of Smith performing sex acts while videotaping girls playing in the park by his apartment, police said.

"We know that this video was made at Stephen Douglas Smith's Utah apartment because the Utah license plates on the cars seen in the video are registered to other occupants of Stephen's apartment complex," the affidavit states.

Brown said the complex of 120 two-bedroom apartments is home to roughly 96 children.

Smith, 37, is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Aug. 18 in Oklahoma on 16 felony counts and three misdemeanors that include rape, sodomy, possession of obscene materials and prostitution with a child younger than age 16. He remains in the Payne County Jail on almost $500,000 bail.

An affidavit on file in the Payne County, Okla., District Court states Smith met the Oklahoma girl through an Internet chat room. Transcripts of e-mail exchanges between the pair detail sex acts they planned to commit and videotape, along with a plot to have the man pick the girl up at her Luther, Okla., home while her mother was asleep, the affidavit states.

Police arrested Smith May 27 at a motel in Stillwater, Okla. The girl was hiding in the bathroom when police arrived, court documents state.

Oklahoma City defense attorney Mack Martin was retained Wednesday to represent Smith on the Oklahoma charges.

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"At this point I'm so new in the case, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to make any comment," Martin said.

Eight of the felony counts against Smith carry a possibility of life in prison, which may preclude prosecution in Utah.

"I don't know that we'd file any charges if he's convicted in Oklahoma," said Reed Richards, chief deputy state attorney general. "The purpose for the search warrant was to find if there are other victims."


E-MAIL: djensen@desnews.com

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