OGDEN — A former Centerville police officer was arrested Tuesday and accused of sexually abusing a child from 2020 to 2024.
Roy police arrested Preston Casey, 44, while he was working out at a gym and booked him into the Weber County Jail for investigation of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, object rape and forcible sexual abuse. No formal charges have been filed as of Wednesday.
Casey, who was named Centerville Police Officer of the Year for 2017, had his phone seized in November through a search warrant, “which yielded concerning messages between him” and an underage girl, according to a police booking affidavit.
The girl told investigators later that Casey had sexually abused her from when she was 12 to when she was 16, the affidavit alleges.
After his arrest, Casey admitted to police that he was in sexually explicit photos of the girl that were found on his phone, the arrest report states. He allegedly told investigators the girl “was not a liar,” but he couldn’t remember any of those events because of medication he was taking.
Casey worked at the Centerville Police Department starting in 2014, according to public records, ending in January of this year.
The affidavit indicates that “several police reports” had been filed previous to the current investigation related to complaints by concerned parents who believed Casey had been messaging girls ages 14 to 16.
Centerville Police Lt. Will Barnes said the department was “made aware of” a complaint against him, leading to an investigation by the Davis County Attorney’s Office.
An initial report from that investigation says parents alerted police that Casey had shown up to cheer squad events at a local high school and “had observed unusual behavior toward their daughter,” according to a Bureau of Investigation initial report by the Davis County Attorney’s Office. Two sets of parents came forward, concerned about the messages Casey was sending the underage girls, which “were never sexual in nature but felt that it could be considered grooming type behavior,” the report says.
The father of one girl and both parents of another, who wished to remain anonymous, told KSL.com that they felt Casey used his position as a police officer, often showing up in uniform, to build trust with the girls.
“I don’t say this to a lot of people but if you ever need anything at anytime please text or call me and I will make it happen,” Casey messaged in February 2023, according to the attorney’s office report. “You are truly a special person to me.” The same month he allegedly sent one of the girls a happy Valentine’s Day message.
Casey had pushed one of the girls to accept him on a social media platform that “information wouldn’t be saved on, and then the first thing that he did was send her a shirtless picture with a disappearing timer,” investigators from the FBI Child Exploitation task force wrote.
A member of that task force who works for the Davis County Attorney’s Office took over one of the girl’s social media accounts to continue messaging the man. He then transitioned to a fake profile from another operative, telling Casey “that she was a friend of mine that was also a 15-year-old female,” the report states.
When investigators stopped responding through the girl’s profile, Casey continued messaging, finally saying, “Hey I really hope I didn’t upset you. I thought you hated me for some reason I was trying to figure it out,” according to the report.
Davis County investigators then requested Casey’s history of using the Utah Criminal Justice Information System while on shift as a police officer and found that Casey had found the license plate of the parents of one underage girl, running a query for driver’s license information and warrants, the report alleges.
Second District Judge Michael Edwards found Casey was stalking one of the parents and the child, and the judge signed a civil stalking injunction in November 2023 with a no-contact order on the entire family.
An internal review of that investigation led to Casey’s resignation from the Centerville Police Department, according to Barnes.
The investigation was also submitted to Utah’s Peace Officer Standards and Training, which certifies police officers. In a June hearing, the council suspended Casey’s police certification for six months, after he admitted to running the license plate of “the father of a young female that had accused Casey of having” an “inappropriate but not illegal friendship with her” while he was off duty, the review panel stated.
The parents who spoke with KSL.com said Casey’s reputation went from being a trusted cop to someone who made them fear for their daughters’ safety. Lane Findlay, a spokesman for the Weber School District, said “school officials were made aware of these situations,” and the parents said the school resource officer was vigilant in keeping an eye on the girls after the injunction.
The Peace Officer Standards and Training council said Casey was terminated from his position for this offense. At the time of Casey’s arrest, the arrest report says he was “actively seeking employment as a police officer,” though it is not confirmed whether the man’s police certification had been reinstated.
Hillary Koellner, spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Public Safety, said they will have to wait for any potential criminal proceedings to take place before a decision is made about his certification going forward.
Roy police and the Davis County Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
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