Convicted sex offender accused of downloading pornography at Salt Lake library

SALT LAKE CITY — A man convicted in federal court several years ago for possessing child sex abuse material is facing new charges and is accused of downloading pornographic material at the Salt Lake City Library for the past several months.

Adrian Mathias Perea, 55, whose home address is listed in court documents as the homeless shelter in South Salt Lake, was charged Thursday in 3rd District Court with nine counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony. Each charge also comes with a habitual sex offender penalty enhancement if convicted.

In September, law enforcers detected child sex abuse material being downloaded at the Salt Lake City Library, according to charging documents. On Tuesday, police went to the library and determined Perea was the person downloading the suspected child sex abuse material.

"On his laptop, law enforcement located the same peer-to-peer software as was discovered in the initial investigation. The downloads tab was open, showing files with keywords indicating he was searching for and downloading child sex abuse material," the charges state. Some of those keywords included "girl," "toddler" and "pedo."

"Law enforcement also located multiple files of child sex abuse material. Law enforcement estimates that there are thousands of files of child sex abuse material on … Perea's computer," the charges continued.

Perea at first denied the allegations, but when pressed, "admitted that he had been downloading child sex abuse material at the library for a few months," according to the charges.

Prosecutors note that Perea was on "federal supervision" at the time of his arrest. According to court records, he pleaded guilty in federal court to "receipt of child pornography" in 2020 and was sentenced to five years in federal custody with credit for time already served, followed by 10 years of supervised release.

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