A 21-year-old West Jordan man is being held without bail at the Salt Lake County Jail after police say he traveled to a meeting spot in Salt Lake County on Wednesday believing he would find a 13-year-old boy waiting for him. Instead, he found officers. Zachary Patrick Henry was booked on charges including attempted sodomy on a child, a first-degree felony, and enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity, a second-degree felony.
According to the arrest statement detailed by ABC4 Utah, a West Jordan Police Department detective who is a member of the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force began an undercover social-media investigation on Wednesday, posing as a man propositioning his 13-year-old nephew. Henry confirmed the social-media platform involved in the exchange, per the outlet's reporting, and engaged in graphic conversations about sexually abusing the child, according to the arrest statement. He allegedly admitted he wanted to perform the sexual acts he discussed with the child and said he understood he was speaking with a man propositioning a 13-year-old.
Henry asked to meet the undercover detective in person and said he would bring condoms, per the arrest statement. When he arrived at the meeting location in Salt Lake County, law enforcement officers took him into custody. Police reportedly found condoms and a THC pen when they searched him, and he was also arrested on a class B misdemeanor count of marijuana possession.
A Firearm Surfaces After the Car Is Impounded
Henry told officers he had a firearm in his vehicle, and police located the weapon after the car was impounded, the station's report states. That discovery led to an additional charge of restricted person engaging in dangerous weapon conduct, a third-degree felony. Under Utah Code § 76-10-503, a person designated as a restricted person — including someone on probation or with felony status — commits a felony simply by possessing a firearm or dangerous weapon, according to the Utah Legislature. The case illustrates how a routine vehicle impoundment following a sting arrest can add felony weapons counts on top of the original charges.
Henry denied ever watching or possessing child sexual abuse material and told officers he had never had a sexual encounter with a child, per the same account. He also claimed he got in trouble for having sex with two other minors when he was 12 years old, according to the arrest statement. As with all arrested individuals, Henry is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Why Undercover Chats Hold Up in Utah Courts
Under Utah Code § 76-4-401, defendants charged with enticing a minor via the internet or text messaging cannot use the involvement of an undercover officer posing as a minor as a legal defense, according to the Utah Legislature. Criminal liability turns entirely on what the suspect believed and intended, not on whether an actual child was ever involved. That legal framework is what allows task force detectives to run decoy chats like the one that led to Henry's arrest.
Henry's first-degree felony sodomy charge carries severe statutory weight. Under Utah Code § 76-5-403.1, sodomy on a child under 14 is punishable by an indeterminate prison sentence of not less than six, 10, or 15 years to life upon conviction, according to Justia Law.
Part of a Growing Statewide Enforcement Push
Henry's arrest fits into a broader pattern of Salt Lake County sting operations this year. Hoodline previously reported on a Herriman decoy arrest earlier this month, in which a 28-year-old Bountiful man allegedly traveled to a meeting location expecting to find a 13-year-old girl who was actually an undercover officer. Other recent Salt Lake County cases have involved a sex offender jailed after a sting group tracked him to a shelter and a South Jordan man held without bail following a separate online decoy operation.
The Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force expanded to include 101 affiliate law enforcement agencies statewide in June, according to the Utah Attorney General’s office, coordinating municipal, county, state, and federal investigators. The task force received more than 11,000 CyberTip reports and identified 166 child victims in 2025, according to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Utah Attorney General's office also reported prosecuting more than twice as many internet crimes against children cases in 2025 as it did the year before.
The surge in Utah reflects a national trend. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported that CyberTipline reports of online enticement rose from 292,951 in the first half of 2024 to 518,720 during the first half of 2025, according to MissingKids.org. Nationwide, 61 regional Internet Crimes Against Children task forces conducted nearly 347,000 investigations in 2025, resulting in more than 17,000 arrests, per the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Utah's task force has also run large multi-agency operations before, including an April 2025 sweep that mobilized more than 80 agents across 31 agencies and led to 15 arrests for online enticement and child exploitation.
