A Salt Lake City police officer was arrested Wednesday for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman on a date, according to American Fork police.
The officer is being held without a bail option in the Utah County jail, according to an order signed Wednesday by 4th District Judge Anthony Howell. The judge found there is “substantial evidence” to support the allegations against the 26-year-old man, and said he would present a danger to others and would be likely to flee if he were released on bail.
The judge also ordered the man to not contact the woman. The officer has not been charged; The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not name suspects until charges have been filed in court.
The officer has been placed on paid administrative leave, according to Brent Weisberg, the Salt Lake City Police Department’s communications director. “The allegations in this case are serious and conflict with our core values,” Weisberg said.
Law enforcement was alerted to the alleged assault on Monday by a forensic nurse, American Fork police officer Marquel Whetton said in a probable cause statement. The suspect is being held on suspicion of four felony offenses: aggravated assault, forcible sexual abuse, forcible sodomy and object rape.
The man invited the woman to his home on Sunday evening to watch a Christmas devotional on TV, according to Whetton’s summary of a report on the forensic exam. The man and woman had connected on a dating app, had been texting for weeks and had spoken by phone, it said.
The woman had told the officer by text that she didn’t like guns, the report said, and he told her when she arrived at his home in American Fork that he had put his firearms away.
They sat together on a bean bag and he began kissing her a few minutes after she arrived, she reported. She didn’t want to kiss him on their first date, she said, but added that she “accepted it as long as they didn’t cross any other boundaries.” She said she told him she didn’t want him to touch her breasts or genitals over or under her clothes, and said he made the same statement to her about his genitals.
He turned off the devotional and started putting his hand under her shirt while she told him, “no,” she said. She agreed to go with him to his room, and once there, he sexually assaulted her, she alleged in the report summarized by Whetton.
The report said the nurse saw bruises on the woman’s neck, chest, one breast and lower abdomen. It said the woman reported the man had choked her hard enough to affect her breathing. He allegedly told her, “Look, you had a gun right next to you while we were doing that,” the report said.
