A 65-year-old homeless man with a decades-long history of sex offenses is being held without bail in the Salt Lake County Jail after police say he sent sexually explicit images and videos to someone he believed was a 13-year-old girl on social media. Gary Joe McCamey was booked on eight counts of distributing material harmful to minors, a second-degree felony, along with a first-degree felony charge of enticing a minor.
According to ABC4 Utah, an online predator-catching group brought the investigation to the Salt Lake City Police Department after gathering explicit images and text conversations between the suspect and someone posing as a 13-year-old girl. The station reports the conversations played out across text, Telegram, and Threads, and that McCamey allegedly sent the explicit material despite being told the account belonged to a minor. A Facebook post from the group Online Predator Intervention, also known as Predator Poachers, described members using a decoy account named “Ashlie” and spending a month trying to locate McCamey at a Salt Lake City homeless shelter before submitting their chat logs to police, according to a Facebook post.
Federal Probation Search Sealed the Case
The station's report notes the group sent its evidence to Salt Lake City police on July 30. Roughly two weeks later, on Tuesday, McCamey's federal probation officer discovered sexually explicit images on his phone that matched the ongoing investigation into a suspect communicating with the alleged 13-year-old account, and searched his cell phone that same day. Police confirmed the case phone number matched McCamey's, and per the same account, he verified that the phone number officers asked him about was his and confirmed that a photograph shown to him by police belonged to his account.
McCamey reportedly shared links to pornography with the minor and tried to educate her on sexual acts, the outlet reports. He told police he was “afraid to get in trouble” because she was a minor, though he also claimed he did not recognize the 13-year-old's account, the same report states. McCamey later invoked his right to an attorney. He is unemployed and homeless, according to the article.
A Pattern Stretching Back Decades
Salt Lake City police confirmed on Tuesday that McCamey was a non-compliant registered sex offender and contacted his federal probation officer as well as McCamey himself regarding an active warrant, per the station's reporting. The outlet notes McCamey has a history of sexual offenses, including crimes against children dating back to 1989. Separately, a 2017 Utah Court of Appeals decision described McCamey's 1991 convictions for sexual offenses involving children and his 2003 parole, which barred any contact with minors under 18, according to Justia Law.
This is not McCamey's first run-in with Salt Lake City police. In September 2024, officers arrested him during an enforcement sweep in Ballpark for unlawfully lingering in a protected area as a registered sex offender, along with a drug possession charge, as per Hoodline.
What Utah Law Says About Enticement Charges
Under Utah Code § 76-4-401, enticing a minor to participate in sexual acts can be charged as a first-degree felony carrying a sentence of three years to life in prison, according to Liberty Law. The firm notes that Utah statute focuses on what the defendant believed about the victim's age, meaning the involvement of an undercover officer or civilian decoy is not a legal defense. Separately, Utah's updated statute on distributing material harmful to minors, Utah Code § 76-5c-205, which took effect in May 2026, classifies a first offense by an adult as a third-degree felony and escalates to a second-degree felony with mandatory imprisonment for repeat offenders, per the Utah State Legislature. A felony enticement conviction also carries mandatory lifetime registration on the state's Sex and Kidnap Offender Registry without automatic removal, according to a presentation by the Utah Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel.
Vigilante Stings Meet a Statewide Enforcement Surge
McCamey's arrest fits into a broader wave of civilian decoy operations and state prosecutions targeting online exploitation of children across Utah. Prosecutions for internet crimes against children in the state more than doubled in 2025 compared with the previous year, with prosecutors bringing nearly 180 cases to court and receiving over 9,500 CyberTipline leads, according to KPCW. Hoodline previously reported on the tensions civilian sting crews create, as law enforcement officials have acknowledged that citizen tips can spark investigations while warning that uncoordinated confrontations carry risks to evidentiary chain-of-custody and officer safety.
Salt Lake-area agencies have run several such operations in recent months, including undercover decoy stings in Herriman and South Jordan that led to felony charges against suspects communicating with accounts presented as 13-year-olds. Nationally, federal, state, and local Internet Crimes Against Children task forces conducted nearly 347,000 investigations in 2025, resulting in more than 17,000 offender arrests, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. As with all arrests, McCamey is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, per the ABC4 Utah disclaimer.
