OGDEN — A teacher who police say tried to entice a 13-year-old girl on the internet was arrested after the girl turned out to be an undercover officer.
Jared Wayne Briggs, 37, of Eagle Mountain, was arrested Monday and formally charged Tuesday in 2nd District Court with enticing a minor and four counts of dealing in harmful materials to a minor, all third-degree felonies.
Briggs is a math teacher at Hunter High School, 4200 S. 5600 West. Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley said Briggs was hired in August after coming to Utah from out of state, and was placed on administrative leave after his arrest. On his Facebook page, Briggs says he is from Palmdale, California.
Police in Weber County conducted an online undercover operation between March 5 and March 13, posing as a 13-year-old girl on the app Whisper.
“During this undercover operation I was contacted by a male who stated he was a high school math teacher in the state of Utah,” according to a police affidavit. “Throughout the conversation it was established that I was 13 and he was 37 but he proceeded to initiate conversations on a daily basis.”
Briggs asked the “girl” personal questions and offered to send her pictures of himself, the affidavit states. “I received a total of four inappropriate photos from him over a period of a couple days,” the officer wrote.
The undercover officer sent Briggs an invitation to a fake Snapchat account, and Briggs sent the officer a photograph of his face, the affidavit states. That information was used to trace Briggs to his home, where a search warrant was served.
“Jared was taken back to our office and interviewed. Jared gave full disclosure of his addiction to porn and chatting with underage girls,” the affidavit states. “Jared disclosed that he prefers the underage girls to be innocent-like.”