A man who described himself to FBI agents as the "king of child pornography" has been arrested after more than 20 years on the run.
Kirk Alan Swearingen has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Utah on charges of receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography. He is scheduled to be arraigned this morning before a federal magistrate.
Swearingen, 45, was arrested after FBI agents said he gave a stolen Social Security number while trying to rent an apartment in Salt Lake City. In criminal charges filed Monday in Utah's federal court, FBI agents said Swearingen told the landlady his name was Chet Weseman. The Social Security number belonged to a 91-year-old man.
When FBI agents investigating the identity theft brought "Weseman" in for questioning, he told them his real name was Carl Clark, giving them another name and Social Security number. Those also turned out to be fake.
When agents threatened to run his fingerprints, "Swearingen advised that he understood and indicated that he had been on the 'run' for 22 years and had been profiled on 'America's Most Wanted,"' FBI Special Agent Jeff Ross wrote in an affidavit filed with criminal charges in federal court.
Swearingen is wanted in several states for child sex offenses including Iowa, South Dakota and New Mexico. He was convicted of a sex offense against a child in Colorado back in 1983. Since then, the FBI said he has been on the run with criminal charges filed against him in 1994, 1998 and 2001.
"He's got a history of travels, a history of child molestation," FBI Special Agent Patrick Kiernan told the Deseret Morning News. "He had over 30 different aliases and six or seven dates of birth. He's been using different names for years."
During questioning by FBI agents, Ross wrote in an affidavit that Swearingen called himself the "king of child pornography but denied being involved in the possession, receipt, manufacture or distribution of child pornography."
Swearingen gave FBI agents permission to search his computers and e-mail accounts. Agents said while searching his property they found a pair of CD cases with numerous compact discs featuring video files of child pornography.
On Wednesday, the FBI said it was beginning to back-track Swearingen's life for the past 20 years, learning where he has been and who he met.
"He admitted to us that he came from California," Kiernan said. "Look how far these offenses go back. We're talking over 20 years. That's a long time, and that could be a lot of victims."
If convicted of the child pornography charges in federal court, Swearingen faces a minimum of 25 years in federal prison.
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com