MONTPELIER — After discovering a 16-year-old girl had sent explicit photos to her 19-year-old son, the young man’s mother took screenshots, sent the photos to the girl’s mother and asked for the communication to stop, according to the attorney representing the young man’s mother.

Now the woman, 48-year-old Kellie Lyn Wilson of Montpelier, faces five felony sex crime charges — three counts of possessing or accessing child sexually exploitative material and two counts of promoting, publishing or producing child sexually exploitative material.

The Idaho State Journal recently obtained court and police records related to the Bear Lake County Sheriff’s Office investigation into the incident and interviewed the Kuna-based attorney representing Wilson, Kristian Scott Beckett, about the case that he describes as “an affront to justice.”

The charges were filed against Wilson in February following a three-month investigation by the sheriff’s office after the mother of the 16-year-old girl requested to speak with deputies on Nov. 14, 2022, according to a Bear Lake County Sheriff’s Office incident report.

The girl’s mother showed the responding sheriff’s deputies the five images of her daughter in various states of undress that Wilson had sent her via Facebook Messenger, the incident report says.

On Nov. 23, 2022, a search warrant against Wilson was executed, resulting in deputies seizing her phone and forcing her to provide them with the passcode to unlock the device, police and court records show.

While the incident report does not provide context for the circumstances leading up to the girl’s mother reporting the receipt of the photos, the sheriff’s office search warrant application, which the Journal has also obtained, does shed some light on the situation.

The search warrant application states that Wilson and the girl’s mother were having a conversation on Facebook Messenger about their children, who were at the time involved in a romantic relationship.

“(The parents) do not agree with the relationship due to (Wilson’s son) being 19-years-old and the (the girl) being 16-years-old,” the search warrant application states. “... The messenger conversation between (the parents) became argumentative and Wilson mentioned in the conversation that (the 16-year-old girl) had sent nude photographs to (Wilson’s son) through Instagram.”

The search warrant application states that deputies interviewed the 16-year-old girl, who reported that Wilson also showed the pictures to two other people, another 16-year-old girl and a woman, by holding her phone up in front of their faces while at the Subway in Montpelier.

After executing the search warrant and seizing Wilson’s phone, Bear Lake County Sheriff’s Office deputies sent the device to an Idaho State Police forensics lab to have a digital extraction completed, according to the incident report.

The Bear Lake County Sheriff’s Office received a thumb drive from Idaho State Police on Dec. 20, 2022, that contained the contents of Wilson’s phone and a deputy was able to locate the five images of the 16-year-old girl that Wilson sent to the girl’s mother, the incident report states.

Wilson was subsequently charged on Feb. 23 and arrested on Feb. 27.

She attended her initial arraignment hearing on Feb. 27 and was released from jail after posting a $25,000 bond.

During his recent interview with the Journal, Beckett denied that Wilson ever showed the photos to any other person, adding that not only did Wilson delete the photos within minutes after sending them to the girl’s mother, but she also reached out to law enforcement first before ever sending the photos at all.

“How is this woman who allegedly shared photos between herself and the girl’s mother to say, ‘Hey, look your daughter is engaging with my son in an inappropriate way, why don’t you take care of it,’ charged with these crimes,” Beckett said. “I mean that’s just insane.”

The Idaho State Journal reached out to Bear Lake County Sheriff Bart Heslington for this story but he declined to comment.

A preliminary hearing in the case was held in May, which resulted in the 6th District Magistrate Judge handling the case, Todd R. Garbett, finding there was sufficient evidence, or probable cause, that Wilson did commit the five felony crimes she was accused of. The case was subsequently elevated to 6th District Judge Mitchell W. Brown in preparation to head to trial.

The case was set to head to trial on Sept. 11 but has since been postponed. The parties are set to appear back in court for a scheduling conference on Oct. 5.

If convicted of all five felony sex crimes filed against her, Wilson faces up to 90 years in prison and a fine of up to $130,000.

Beckett said criminal charges should have never been filed against Wilson and he has recently filed a motion to suppress the evidence Bear Lake County Sheriff’s Office deputies obtained after seizing Wilson’s phone while executing the search warrant, specifically arguing that deputies forcing her to provide the passcode to her phone violated her Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination.

“This case is about one mother talking to another mother about their children because her son received inappropriate images from his girlfriend and his mother reached out to the other mom to get it to stop,” Beckett said “To come out and charge a woman considering the circumstances in this case is an affront to justice.”