As they stood to receive a national award for protecting children from sexual predators on the Internet, members of Utah's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force looked tired.

They had been up all night, booking into jail a man accused of downloading child pornography.

The ICAC task force was honored Friday by the Virginia-based National Law Center for Children and Families, which presented the officers with their Child Defenders Award.

"Frankly, these officers are not recognized enough for the work they do to defend children and families," said Richard Whidden Jr., the center's director.

Utah leads the nation with the highest rate of Internet predator arrests per capita. By the end of July, the ICAC task force had made 46 arrests connected to child solicitation and child pornography online.

Authorities said there are many reasons the state is No. 1.

"We have seen individuals that prey on Utah because of the dynamic that we have," said U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman. "We have a lot of children in this state and a trusting citizenry."

Ken Wallentine, the Utah Attorney General's chief of law enforcement, said the state is also No. 1 because officers are more aggressive in busting Internet sex predators. He said parents can protect their children by being vigilant about their online activities.

"Please don't get tired of this message, because the predators won't get tired of preying on your children," he said.

On Friday, the ICAC task force served a search warrant on a Salt Lake County home where a man was downloading suspected child pornography.

"We found voluminous amounts of known child pornography," Wallentine said, adding that the computer was in the process of downloading more illicit images when the home was raided.

According to a probable cause statement filed at the Salt Lake County Jail, the man told detectives he had sexually abused children in the past but was downloading the images "to keep him from sexually acting out on children."

Edward J. Denton, 63, was booked into jail on a single count of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony. Bail has not been set.

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E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com