Case dismissed against LaVerkin man charged with sexual offenses against a child

ST. GEORGE – The Washington County Attorney’s office today made a motion before the Fifth District Court of Washington County to dismiss the case filed against a 20-year-old LaVerkin man who was arrested and booked on Tuesday by LaVerkin Police on first degree felony charges of rape and sodomy of a child.

After filing the charging papers yesterday, the 11-year-old victim in the alleged case recanted her accusations against the defendant.  County Attorney Brock Belnap said that his investigators found corroborating evidence supporting the girl’s statements that the events underlying the case did not happen.

The reason she now said that she didn’t really want to tell police about the incident, Belnap said, was because it didn’t actually happen.

District Court Judge John J. Walton heard and granted the motion to dismiss in Washington County Criminal Case No. 131500291 and order of dismissal was filed today at 1:57 p.m.

Related post

LaVerkin PD arrest 20-year-old on felony sexual offenses against a child

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Twitter: @JoyceKuzmanic

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2013, all rights reserved.

 

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17 Comments

  • Tyler February 14, 2013 at 7:06 pm

    Oh boy, Brian Hyde and Dallas will have more topics to bash the police.

  • Melissa February 14, 2013 at 7:40 pm

    I hope the accused sues everyone involved for this! There is no way he can recover from something like that. How terrible!!!

  • Dan Lester February 14, 2013 at 7:40 pm

    I would hope there would be a bit more investigation before charges are actually filed. It isn’t like he was standing with a smoking gun over a bleeding dead guy.

  • gee February 14, 2013 at 8:21 pm

    no doubt there was some wrong things going on between those two. super great job by the laverkin police. those idiots can’t seem to do anything right. can’t say that its surprising with the level of intelligence out of that shallow gene pool of a city.

  • ladybugavenger February 14, 2013 at 8:28 pm

    It’s so sad…you know this guy is going to be looked at like he did something he shouldn’t have…I saw his photo and many others did too…its still in bookings. At my work, many people read the bookings and not the news in St George….the bookings show he is still in jail and charged, yet this article says different.There is more to this story than we know, but he(the suspect turned victim) knows and if he is innocent like they say…how did they get it so wrong? I hope he does pursue this matter with a legal motion for his own healing,,,how do you recover from such accusations?

  • Ehlon Wilson February 14, 2013 at 10:52 pm

    Has anyone considered that she recanted her story because she’s afraid? Or that someone is black mailing her so that he doesn’t go to prison? It’s only logical..you shouldn’t assume that she might be lying..there are a lot of creepers in washington county..just saying..he could have threatened to harm her and/or family.

  • Debbie February 15, 2013 at 8:47 am

    What I know of this is that we don’t know. If they had enough evidence for a case, they couldn’t put out in the public venue the details that would convince the public without compromising further information gathering efforts. And even were the investigation aspect complete then such evidence booted around by the press would contaminate the potential juror pool.

    What else I know is that casting aspersions on any involved in this, investigators and principals specifically, is not called for. None of us has enough information to make a reasoned judgement concerning these events or non-events. And if someone out there does have enough information to make such a judgement… then they need to use wisdom and discretion in airing their corroborating evidence before they unintentionally ruin someone’s life.

    I am reminded of the 18 year old ‘sex offender’ whose only crime was getting it on with his 17 year old girlfriend. It was an unwise choice but was it worth ruining two lives?…

    • duh February 15, 2013 at 2:36 pm

      This is not a case of one year age difference. The police clearly screwed up the case if the prosecutor dismissed it a day after the arrest. Reading the bookings shows that the arresting officer was Romney. Seems like the same Romney that writes articles for this site is getting paid by the police and stgnews for writing about his cases. Can’t believe they don’t see that as a conflict. Clearly he’s releasing articles before his cases are even accepted. Guess cops can count their chickens before they hatch.

      • Avatar photo Joyce Kuzmanic February 15, 2013 at 3:03 pm

        Allow us to clarify, Travis Romney writes occasional opinion pieces under his column, The Bully Slayer, for St. George News. Those columns are specifically noted as follows:
        Ed. Note: T.S. Romney is an opinion columnist and a law enforcement officer. Nothing in this column shall be construed as legal advice, as a substitute for professional mental health treatment, as an adjudication of claims, or as acting on behalf of any law enforcement department. T.S. Romney’s opinions and methods are his own and are not representative of St. George News.
        Mr. Romney does no news reporting for this publication and St. George News does not permit a contributor to offer both opinion and news on a topic simultaneously.
        The report in this instance was derived and sourced independent of Romney and directly with the Chief of LaVerkin police.
        ST. GEORGE NEWS | STGnews.com
        Joyce Kuzmanic
        Editor-in-Chief

  • zeke February 15, 2013 at 9:15 am

    Once someone is arrested, that photo and info gets embedded all over the web. Even though this case has been dismissed, will he ever be able to wipe cyberspace clean of this info? Hopefully this false arrest will not haunt him for some time to come with future employment, etc…. That will be the sad part of this whole situation.

  • duh February 15, 2013 at 3:32 pm

    Wow. Last time I saw something that defensive it came from Lance Armstrong. Nevertheless it seems suspicious that there is an increase of articles on your site involving the LaVerkin Police who also happens to employ the same officer who writes columns for your site.

  • ladybugavenger February 15, 2013 at 8:53 pm

    Ehlon, I understand what you are saying, of course she is scared…BUT the DA would not have dropped the charges so quickly even if she said it didn’t happen…My opinion of course, and it continues…I don’t think he is innocent, he may not be guilty of sodomy…..but he is not innocent….he was obviously not where he was suppose to be and not doing what he was suppose to be doing….we don’t know!!! We don’t know how they know eachother….we don’t know. back at ya Ehlon you shouldn’t assume he is guilty. Not only are you assuming he is guilty you have added blackmail, and tampering with witness…WE DON”T KNOW THE TRUTH!!! WE know he was charged and the DA dismissed it and he will forever have this case following him- the charge of sex offense- sodomy of child and that it was dismissed……that doesn’t make it right, fair, or just…there is no innocent until proven guilty.

  • ladybugavenger February 15, 2013 at 9:07 pm

    and to add:…This whole situation is jacked up and the police aren’t innocent either.

  • Dan Lester February 15, 2013 at 10:22 pm

    It seems that the DA said that further investigation showed he could NOT have done it. And that the girl said she said it because she didn’t like the guy.

    I can tell you that coming from a family of educators (and having taught in college for years myself) that one of the biggest fears of a teacher/professor is a student of opposite (or same, for that matter) sex says “he grabbed my breast” or “he said I should come to his house to improve my grade” or some such thing. I know this because I was the victim of such a charge when an attractive young female I failed in a class said that I offered her a good grade if she came to my house for sex. I was single at the time. I reported it to administration and it was, fortunately, handled within the university and she was kicked out of school for the false charge.

    There is no question that false charges happen, just as there is no question there are perverts out there doing evil stuff. Having been on three criminal juries as well, I know from that side how hard it is to sort out the truth.

  • ladybugavenger February 16, 2013 at 7:57 am

    This kid was arrested with only an accusation and without evidence. shame shame shame

  • Noneya February 19, 2013 at 11:31 am

    I see where everyone is coming but I think we all know that they can’t arrest you if they don’t have enough evidence to do so and also I think it is said that we blame the cops for doing there jobs I personally am glad something was done cause what if it wasn’t and one of your daughters was the next victim I do feel really bad for the boy because he will have to live with this for the rest of his life but I think he will learn a really good life lesson and watch his back allot more but all of you blaming the cops is sad because they do the best they can to protect you and your families and people have no respect for them think about that when you decide to blame the cops for other people’s doings.

  • trey October 22, 2013 at 1:02 pm

    i am going to pursue sueing everyone that was involved, my name, my life is ruined over these false charges and i believe someone should pay for doing this to me, i mean i couldnt even get a simple appology.

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