Man arrested for posing as 14-year-old, sending and receiving CSAM, charges say

PROVO, Utah (ABC4) — A 22-year-old living in Provo has been arrested and charged after his partner discovered child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on his cell phone.

Jonathan Alexander Demeyer, 22, has been charged with 10 counts of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, a first-degree felony; eight counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony; and 10 counts of distributing material harmful to a minor, a third-degree felony.

According to documents, Demeyer’s intimate partner contacted the Provo Police Department on July 1, 2025, after locating videos of “children being sexually abused” on his cell phone. The partner described several disturbing sexual videos to police, as well as a conversation where he pretended to be a 14-year-old on social media.

The intimate partner called Demeyer to confront him with a police officer present and recording the conversation. During this call, Demeyer allegedly told his partner that he was “attempting to scam pedophiles” and made “suicidal threats indicating he wouldn’t be alive in 24 hours.”

Provo Police officers were able to locate Demeyer and detain him. A search warrant for his cell phone returned a “large amount of child sexual abuse material,” documents say. Officers also found that he was using social media to pose as a 14-year-old boy in multiple conversations with underage girls.

Through those conversations, he convinced multiple female children around the age of 13 or 14 to create and share CSAM with him. Demeyer had allegedly been doing this since at least November 2024. There was one conversation where a girl said she did not send images, and he asked her to “unadd him.”

During an interview with police, Demeyer allegedly said that he had not used the phone for over two years, saying that anyone could have been using it. He then changed his story, according to documents, and said that he used it to “scam pedophiles” and get money from them. Demeyer stated that he did not save the videos, but would send and receive CSAM.

When police confronted Demeyer with the evidence of videos and chat messages found on his phone, he allegedly admitted that he had been using the phone. Demeyer told police that he had messed up, and this behavior began around four or five years ago.

According to documents, Demeyer had only been living in Provo for three months, and he began traveling toward Iowa after being confronted by his intimate partner, saying that he would “rather crash his car than deal with any charges.”

Demeyer is currently booked into the Utah County Jail, where he is being held without bail. He has an initial appearance in court today.