An Utah mother has pleaded guilty to child abuse after taking nude photos of her 13-year-old daughter so that the girl could text them to a 30-year-old “family friend.”
In April, the teen told Duchesne County detectives that Daniel Dean Divine, who lives in Oregon, was her boyfriend and had asked her to take nude pictures for him on an iPhone he had given her, the Deseret News reported.The girl said she could not figure out how to use the phone’s camera, so her mother, 35, agreed to take three photos of her to be sent to the man, according to the Deseret News.The names of the mother and the teenager haven’t been released in order to protect the girl’s identity. The woman told investigators that Divine was a “very good friend of the family,”according to KSL. She also claimed that he and her daughter were planning to wait until the girl was 18 to begin a sexual relationship.
The mother was originally charged with three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony. As part of aplea bargain, she pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of third-degree felony child abuse and agreed to testify against Divine. She faces up to five years in prison.
Divine has been charged with sexual exploitation of a minor and enticing a minor over the Internet.