OGDEN — A registered sex offender and “child porn addict,” according to police, has been arrested again.
Scott Andrew Clark, 44, of Ogden, was arrested Tuesday night for investigation of five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. Detectives, however, say they found nearly 1,100 pictures and videos of child pornography on Clark’s phone, according to a police affidavit.
The investigation began about 7:20 p.m. Tuesday when Riverdale police were called to a business where a car was parked in front, even though the business was closed. Responding officers received a license plate number and learned the vehicle was registered to Clark, a registered sex offender who was convicted of two counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor in 2003, and lewdness by a sex offender in 2017, according to court records.
An officer who approached Clark’s car “noticed that Scott had a cellphone in his right hand, open laptop on his front passenger seat and that his belt and zipper were undone,” the affidavit states.
When police had Clark step out of his car, he began acting very nervous and then admitted to looking at child pornography with the victim ages ranging from infants to teens, according to the affidavit.
Two cellphones, a laptop and tablet were found in the vehicle, the affidavit states.
When Clark was taken to police headquarters for more questioning, officers noted he was honest but became emotional.
“Scott told me that he had already been to prison for child porn and was now headed back. Scott began getting emotional,” the affidavit states. “Scott admitted to being a child porn addict stating that he wished to get help for this.
“There were well over 1,100 images/videos on Scott’s phone. I counted the images and videos as accurately as I could and got the total number of pornographic images on Scott’s phone involving obvious children to be at 1,099 images,” the affidavit continued. “Scott was very remorseful and cooperative during this process.”
Clark apologized to the officers for forcing them to look at the images and videos, calling them “embarrassing,” the affidavit states.
“Scott is an admitted child pornography addict who was found to have over 1,000 images of child pornography including images and videos in this case. With more devices to search, that number will only rise dramatically,” according to the affidavit.