Teton County registered sex offender charged with multiple child exploitation felonies following tip from hospital staff
News Team
DRIGGS, Idaho (KIFI) — A registered sex offender out of Teton County is now facing up to 87 years in prison after hospital staff reported him for possession of child pornography.
Dennis Joe Empey, of Driggs, is charged with two counts of felony sexual battery-solicit participation of a minor child 16 to 17 years of age, two counts of disseminating material harmful to a minor, one count of possession of child sexually exploitative material, and distribution of child sexually exploitative material.
According to court documents, on December 26, 2024, a hospital worker reported Empey for potential possession of child pornography. The probable cause documents state that “Empey had reportedly pulled up a photo of the wound on his phone, and when he swiped out of the photo and scrolled down, there were photos of children on his phone.”
“The worker stated it was quick and the photos were blurry, but stated that one photo was of a shirtless boy that looked to be 8-12 years old,” states the document.
Detectives later went on to interview Empey in his home on January 15, 2025, where he willingly allowed the detectives to go through his phone, and detectives told him he could tell them to stop at any time.
Detectives located a photo on Facebook Messenger of what appeared to be an AI-generated photo of juvenile males within the age range of 10-14 years old engaging in sexual acts. The males’ genitalia were clearly visible in the photo, according to court documents.
According to court documents, when detectives showed Empey the photo, he confirmed that they appeared to be minors, but denied having anything to do with he photo, stating “he was just in a group chat and it had nothing to do with him.”
Empey reportedly informed the detectives that forty-five years prior, while he was in his twenties, he had “mutually masturbated with a 15-16 year old boy,” according to court documents. Empey is a registered sex offender, having been convicted in 1991 in Provo, Utah, of child molestation, sentenced to one year in jail and three years’ probation.
He was later tied to a well-known lawsuit involving sexual abuse crimes against now-former Boy Scouts. According to a report by the Idaho State Journal, Empey was accused by an anonymous victim of sexually abusing him during the summer of 1981 at Camp Morrison, near McCall, about 100 miles north of Boise.
Detectives seized the suspect’s phone and applied for a warrant to search Empey’s phone data. Upon further search, detectives discovered videos and photographs of child sexually exploitive material, in addition to WhatsApp messages between Empey and two 17-year-old boys from other countries.
According to court documents, in said messages, Empey claims to be a young man in his twenties, using an AI-generated image of a younger man. The messages start in mid-September 2024, and in them, the suspect reportedly asked the boys about their sexual encounters, repeatedly sent pornographic material, and asked the young men to take photos of themselves.
In further interviews with detectives on May 8, 2025, Empey denied recognizing any of the photos found by police.
Local News 8 spoke with victims’ advocate Noel Russell — who filed charges against Empey decades ago on behalf of her then-husband — about these latest allegations. She says Empey has been enabled for years and that his abuse needs to be stopped.
“One of the things. That I would love to be able to get through to people, is people think they know the offender, but the only person who really knows the offender, who really knows who they are and what they’re like, are their victims, and nobody else truly sees their whole face. They see the mask the offender puts on so that they can continue to prey on people,” said Russell. “But he has made it very clear that he is going to prey on children until the day he dies.”
He was arraigned before Magistrate Judge Jason Walker on September 17, 2025. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for October 15, 2025, at 1:30 p.m.