Utah State Student Allegedly Raped Four Women—and Never Faced Any Punishment

Three of the four women, none of whom knew each other, were students at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, and all three students reported their assaults to the school. Yet despite the repeated allegations, an investigative report by the Salt Lake Tribune shows neither the school nor the police have investigated the case thoroughly, and that the school and police department did not work together to seek justice.

The first incident was reported by a USU student in January 2015. She alleges she was overpowered and raped during a casual date in the man's apartment. Afterwards, Catherine (a pseudonym) reported the incident to her campus RA, then to the school's Sexual Assault and Anti-Violence Information (SAAVI) Office, where a female counselor discouraged Catherine from reporting the incident to the school's Title IX office, instead advising her to tell the police.

Catherine was put in touch with a local Detective Olsen, who conducted a few interviews as part of the investigation. During one interview, a friend of the accused said the man was "actually a pretty good kid, he has a pretty decent heart," and Detective Olsen replied, "That's kind of what I feel." Later, without her knowledge, Catherine's case was dropped and no charges were filed.

Later in 2015, three other women accused Catherine's alleged attacker of sexually assaulting them in a similar manner, and during that time Olsen declined to mention Catherine's complaints from January. In fact, the accused man called Olsen after the second incident, afraid another report would be filed, but the detective promised him, "We're not going to look back and look at your past because we already investigated that and that isn't going to play a role in this investigation."

But John Wilkinson, an attorney advisor with AEquitas: The Prosecutors' Resource on Violence Against Women, and a former prosecutor, tells Broadly previous reports should absolutely be used in sexual assault investigations. "Any time there's a report of sexual assault, and then a subsequent report, particularly when they're contemporaneous, that's going to be a big red flag," he says.

"Every time you get a report of sexual assault, you should be thinking, Serial offender," he adds, noting that some studies have shown repeat offenders are more common than non-serial sex offenders. "Since rape is not about sex—it's about power, control, fear, terror, and things like that—if that's what someone is aroused by, it's likely they're going to seek it again and again."

Wilkinson says that, even without a prior report, investigators should still want to look into a person's background. When there is a prior incident, according to him, "You're going to want to look into both cases."

The police aren't the only ones who should look into these cases, though. Title IX is a federal law that prohibits federally-funded schools from discriminating based on sex, and it mandates that students have the right to an educational environment free of sexual harassment or assault.

A representative from USU's SAAVI Office told the Tribune that the school's Title IX office frequently "holds off on investigating until law enforcement is done." Wilkinson, however, tells Broadly that schools are "required to move forward with their own investigation," but that really what should happen is a coordinated investigation.

"The best approach to work with a sex assault response team (SART), where all the players work in a coordinated fashion and not doing anything that negatively impacts the victim," he says. "A typical team would include a prosecutor, the police, medical responders, advocacy, and in certain cases local campuses." He says that sexual assault cases are some of the hardest to try, which is why "you want to leave no stone unturned."

Of the four rape cases at USU, Detective Olsen referred two of the cases to a Deputy Cache County Attorney Lachmar, who declined to file charges on both. When contacted by the Tribune, Lachmar said she believed Olsen to still be working on a third, but the Tribune's investigation showed he hasn't contacted any of the victims since January 2016. After being contacted by the Tribune, though, Lachmar requested information on the two cases handled by Olsen and told the newspaper she has decided to look at the four cases as a whole, and may use the two cases where she decided not to file charges as part of a bigger case against the man who was accused in all of them.

Two of the students who reported their assaults to no avail dropped out of USU after filing their reports. The alleged attacker, who denies all of the accusations made against him, remained on campus until he graduated in the spring of 2016. According to him, he was only contacted by the school regarding one of the reported incidents.

After the Tribune's investigation was published, USU released a statement saying, "We are looking closely at our policies and support services and will make any changes that will ensure the well-being of our students."

Kristen Houser, the chief public affairs officer of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, tells Broadly, "We need to encourage people to treat non-stranger cases as just a serious threat to community safety as a stranger assault."

She adds, "People tend to think serial rapists are breaking into homes, stranger assaults. We need the people that are working on campuses or community police to get good training about non-stranger assailants. These are typically serial assailants, far more common than the average person thinks."