Former Utah Police Officer Pleads No Contest to Child Sex Abuse Charges, KSL Reports

A former police officer in East Layton, Utah, has pleaded no contest to child sex abuse charges, KSL reported in a story posted October 7 and updated the following day. According to KSL, the man is 78 years old and the abuse he was charged with is alleged to have begun in 1986, with the reported victims including his daughters and stepdaughters. A no-contest plea means a defendant does not admit guilt but declines to contest the charges, and it is generally treated as a conviction for sentencing purposes.

KSL reported that the case is entangled with a decades-old cold case: the former officer's daughters have said they suspect he was involved in the 1975 disappearance of a young woman, and the outlet reported earlier in October that Davis County deputies excavated the back yard of his former property as part of that search. KSL noted that the child sex abuse allegations he was charged with were separate from, and not dependent on, the cold case investigation.

The outlet said it does not typically identify victims of child sexual abuse, but noted that the man's daughters have spoken publicly about the case. notadragqueen.org does not name the accused; the full reporting, including the procedural history and what the plea means for sentencing, is available at the link.