A Utah man accused of kidnapping and sexually abusing his girlfriend’s teen daughter three years ago in Duchesne County has resolved that case, but he still faces sex-related charges filed in a Salt Lake County.
Jared Stephen Morgan, 38, pleaded no contest to third-degree felony forcible sexual abuse last week in 8th District Court.
Morgan initially faced aggravated human trafficking and other sex abuse-related counts when charged were filed in 2016, but prosecutors amended the charges prior to a February preliminary hearing, and reduced them again as part of a plea deal.
Morgan was sentenced to serve a year in jail for the crime, with credit for time served. The defendant has already been in the Duchesne County jail for a year, and was released Friday — but he was booked into the Salt Lake County jail the same day for sex abuse-related charges filed in another sex-related case.
The woman in the Duchesne County case testified during a February preliminary hearing that Morgan, her mother’s boyfriend, kept her in a cabin on his property and forced her to perform sex acts or have intercourse with him in exchange for food. Though the doors and windows were not locked, the woman testified that she felt she could not leave during June and July in 2014, and was fearful for her life.
“I wanted to eat,” she testified in an 8th District courtroom. “And I wanted to live.”
Morgan’s attorney, Kenneth Brown, said Monday that his client has never admitted to anything criminal and insists the relationship with the then-18-year-old girl was consensual.
“You can’t pass it up,” Brown said of the lenient plea deal. “If you’re looking at five first-degree felonies [at trial], sometimes in this business you have to make that kind of decision. We didn’t feel like we had any other choice.”
The defense attorney said Monday that his office had provided “very exculpatory evidence,” including text messages, to prosecutors. Duchesne County Attorney Stephen Foote did not return a request for comment.
Morgan is currently being held at the Salt Lake County jail in lieu of $1 million bail.
Salt Lake County prosecutors have charged him in 3rd District Court with 16 felonies — including aggravated sexual abuse, sodomy on a child and kidnapping — for allegedly sexually abusing two other girls.
Some of the Salt Lake County charges also include alleged abuse of the teen who was the victim in the Duchesne County case.
A scheduling conference is set for Sept. 25 in the Salt Lake County case.