ST. GEORGE — A local man is in jail on multiple cases and faces more than 30 stalking and protection order violation charges – allegations filed within a span of less than three months against a suspect with a criminal history that includes a 2016 conviction for aggravated assault after he admittedly held a driver and his wife at gunpoint in in Washington City.
60-year-old Veyo resident Kim Ray Terry II has been charged with multiple offenses in connection with a series of incidents that began in September when two separate cases alleging protective order violations were filed with the Washington County Attorney’s Office that included three misdemeanor charges of violating a protective order. The following month, Terry was charged with another three counts of violating a protective order, bringing the total to six misdemeanor charges filed against the suspect.
In December, the suspect was charged with seven third-degree felony counts of stalking and another 18 misdemeanor counts of violating a protective order, charges that were included in five separate criminal cases filed within a seven-day period from Dec. 6-13.
In all, Terry faces 31 felony and misdemeanor charges between the eight cases that led to five warrants issued for his arrest. On Friday, he was booked into jail.
Prosecutor Mark Barlow told St. George News that Terry turned himself to the jail in Washington County on the warrants voluntarily.
According to the probable cause statements filed in support of the arrest, the cases started piling up after a restraining order was put in place that prohibited the suspect from having any contact with an individual Terry was in a prior relationship with. From there, Washington County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a number of calls relating to the protection order starting in September, when the suspect allegedly sent numerous text messages to the reporting party, whom he was prohibited from having any contact with. When Terry’s number was blocked, he would reach out from a series of different numbers until each one was blocked, and so on.
In several of the cases, the suspect was allegedly watching the home of the individual listed in the order, and the reports also state the suspect would routinely watch the house for hours on end, documenting the comings and goings of the person living there. According to one December report, the suspect placed a tracking device on the individual’s vehicle that was later recovered by police.
With the ongoing investigations relating to the eight separate cases still active, no further details could be included in this report, but a review of court records revealed a case filed in April 2016 that was enough of a “public safety concern” that officers were advised the arrest should take place “as soon as possible,” rather than wait until after the complaint was filed with the courts.
The incident began when an officer was dispatched to an incident that was called into emergency dispatch as a traffic stop involving a probation officer who had a driver detained for reckless driving.
From there, the report states, emergency dispatch sent out an “attempt to locate” call to all officers in the area. A patrol officer in the Green Springs area where the vehicle was reportedly stopped noticed two cars blocking the roadway and then received an update from dispatch advising the driver had been stopped by a private probation agent who reportedly held the driver at gunpoint before detaining the man.
The officer saw the alleged probation agent standing near a man who was handcuffed. When the officer asked what was going on, the agent identified himself as Terry and told police he was traveling on Red Hills Parkway with his wife and daughter when he was nearly run off the road by the vehicle driven by the man in handcuffs, adding he nearly crashed as a result.
Terry went on to say the driver’s actions constituted an “assault,” the report states, adding that Terry said he “felony stopped him because I’m a retired cop” and, as such, knew what he was doing.
The officer spoke to the passenger in the second vehicle who said because of weather and driving conditions, they had no idea they had cut the other vehicle off. She said once they pulled up to the traffic light, the driver of the other vehicle, Terry, “jumped out of the car and pointed his gun at them” and demanded that her husband get out of the car. She also told officers she was so terrified that her husband would be shot.
At this point, officers removed the handcuffs from the driver and had both vehicles pull into the gas station to continue the investigation.
The officer reportedly advised Terry that based on what the occupants of the other vehicle were telling him, “there was no assault.”
The officer went on to say the incident possibly constituted reckless driving but explained that being cut off in a road rage incident is not an assault under Utah law. The officer also told Terry that instead of taking matters into his own hands, he should have contacted the police.
Terry said he worked as a private probation officer for a local company, the report states, adding that Terry was wearing police-style boots and had a badge hanging on a chain around his neck with “Probation Officer” on it. He was also wearing a nylon duty belt typically worn by police officers that contained what appeared to be pepper spray, a night stick, handcuff case and a Glock firearm secured in a gun holster.
“At face value, Kim appeared to look like a probation agent based off of his attire and gear he was wearing,” the officer noted in the report.
The officer advised the couple in the other vehicle that Terry did not have the authority to conduct a felony stop or hold the driver at gunpoint and that several charges would be submitted to the Washington County Attorney’s Office against him, including aggravated assault.
The report states that Terry also wanted the couple cited for reckless driving, which the officer advised would have to be a citation issued by a citizen, meaning it would be signed and testified to by Terry himself. The officer also explained the citation to the couple, reiterating that it was not being issued by the Washington City Police Department.
Following the incident, the investigator returned to the Washington City Police Department to look into the situation further, which is when he discovered that Terry had no law enforcement certifications within the state of Utah. He also discovered the suspect was also being investigated by another law enforcement agency for impersonating an officer in an unrelated incident.
Through the course of the investigation, detectives could find no evidence that Terry had been certified as a police officer in any state, only that he retired from the human resources department of the Nevada Department of Corrections.
Based on the findings, multiple charges were submitted to the Washington County Attorney’s Office for review, including two second-degree felony counts of aggravated assault, as well as two counts of unlawful detention, for holding the couple at gunpoint, as well as one count of impersonating an officer and disorderly conduct, each a misdemeanor.
In the meantime, officers learned of an emergency hearing scheduled to revoke the suspect’s private probation certification, as well as a second unrelated investigation that was still ongoing.
Due to the findings it was decided to move forward and make the arrest as soon as possible. Terry pleaded guilty to one of the aggravated assault charges, which was reduced to a third-degree felony, while all other charges were dropped as part of the plea agreement.
Terry was placed on 36-months’ probation, fined $1,500 and ordered to complete anger management courses. In 2019, the court denied the defendant’s motion to reduce the felony to a misdemeanor charge, and he completed his probation successfully in September of that same year.
Following Terry’s recent arrest on Friday, he is scheduled to appear for a hearing in 5th District Court on Tuesday.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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