Orem man sentenced to federal prison for creating and possessing CSAM

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — An Orem man has been sentenced to prison for creating and possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Austin Matthew Otto, 25, was sentenced to eight years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release after he pleaded guilty on June 4, 2024. He was also ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution to each victim.

In 2021, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) District of Utah, Otto “produced sexually explicit photos of two children” and uploaded CSAM to his Google Photos account.

A report from Google to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identified the IP address, and it was connected to Otto. The case was sent to the Orem Police Department for investigation, and they served a search warrant on him and his accounts.

The search warrant uncovered “hundreds of images and videos” of CSAM, and a pair of children’s underwear was in Otto’s possession.

“The forensic evaluation on the digital evidence also revealed filenames, keyword and web browser hits, bookmarks, playback history of videos, hidden names and folders all containing child sexual abuse material including 17 exploitive images of two victims under eight years old located on Otto’s cell phone and laptop,” the press release says.

Otto was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Howard C. Nielson, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol A. Dain of the USAO for the District of Utah prosecuted the case.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office noted that this case is part of a greater effort to investigate child exploitation cases, Project Safe Childhood. PSC is “a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.”