Salt Lake City School Board member arrested in child porn investigation

The Salt Lake City School District’s office building is pictured in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021. Joel-Lehi Organista, 29, a member of the Salt Lake City Board of Education, was was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on Wednesday, June 2, 2021, for investigation of eight counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News

A member of the Salt Lake City Board of Education has been arrested and accused of possessing child pornography.

Joel-Lehi Organista, 29, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on Wednesday for investigation of eight counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.

The investigation began when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a report of a Dropbox account containing suspected child pornography. The account was linked to Organista's residence, according to a police booking affidavit.

When police interviewed Organista, he admitted to “having downloaded, viewed and kept images and videos containing child pornography in his Dropbox account,” the affidavit states. Some of the images were of children as young as 5 years old, according to police.

Investigators served a search warrant and collected Organista's electronic devices, including his phone and iPad, and discovered that he had been communicating on Snapchat with children between the ages of 12 and 17, according to the affidavit.

Salt Lake City School District

“In Snapchat communications, Joel is clearly notified of the ages of the children and asks for naked photographs and directs the children to do sexual acts,” the affidavit alleges.

One of the children in the Snapchat conversations was a 12-year-old boy, the affidavit says.

A spokeswoman for the school district said they were just learning about the arrest Thursday morning and had no comment.

Police noted in the report that Organista “has access to young children in his current position of trust with grades K-12. Joel has shown that, through electronic means, that he frequently meets children online, solicits nude photographs from them, and has private online video conversation with them,” according to the affidavit.

Organista, originally from Mexico, graduated from West High School and later taught and Horizonte High School. In 2019 he was named as one of Utah's “20 in their 20s” by Utah Business for a website he created for educators.

He was elected to the Salt Lake School Board in November. Organista also served as the national vice president of youth for the League of United Latin American Citizens.

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