In a letter submitted to court last year, Utah Senate President Stuart Adams defended his step-granddaughter by recasting her sexual assault of a 13-year-old as misguided compassion, claiming the relationship between the two began as an attempt to make sure the victim “felt included.”
In 2023, Adams’s step-granddaughter, who was 18 at the time, was charged with two counts of rape of a child and two counts of sodomy on a child after she had sex with a 13-year-old minor. Anyone under the age of 14 cannot legally consent to sex in Utah.
Adams has faced harsh criticism after he helped to engineer a legislative change in 2024 that would allow prosecutors to treat certain 18-year-old child rape defendants as minors in specific circumstances. They must still be enrolled in high school, and the sexual activity cannot be coerced. That modification matched the circumstances his grandchild was facing.
Though the change was not retroactive, the prosecutor, judge and defense attorney said the new law was a major factor in a plea deal offered to the defendant. She eventually plead guilty to second-degree felony aggravated assault and three misdemeanor counts of sexual battery. Under the terms of the deal, she spent no additional time in jail and was not required to register as a sex offender.
https://utahpolitics.news/utah-senate-leaders-defense-of-granddaughter-in-sexual-assault-case-she-wanted-victim-to-feel-included/
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