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Sex Crime Defense Lawyers in Salt Lake City, Utah

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Sex Crime Defense Lawyers in Salt Lake City, Utah

Have you been charged with a sex crime in the state of Utah? Then you need an experienced Utah sex defense lawyer on your side and fast. Without a good defense lawyer by your side, even the lightest penalties can include jail time and thousands of dollars in fines, which doesn’t include the damaging effects of having your name added to the sex offender registry or possible job loss. We specialize in aggressively defending our clients as defense attorneys and are always willing to go the extra mile.

Contact a Sex Crimes Defense Attorney at the Wasatch Defense Lawyers and Schedule a Free Case Review

Even if no charges have been filed, your future could be at risk. Call us and see what you can do to protect yourself today. It’s free!

What Is a Sex Crime in Utah?

Strict definitions are a key part of Utah’s legal system, and those definitions don’t always line up with what you might think. Here’s a quick summary of the more common sex crimes:

Aggravated Sexual Assault:

This crime occurs when, during a crime of rape, attempted rape, or other sex crime, the perpetrator causes physical injury to the victim, threatens the victim with a dangerous weapon, or attempts to coerce the victim to submit to rape or other sexual victimization by threatening to harm someone. Or, if the perpetrator is being aided in the act by one or more other people in a sex crime, it may be classed as aggravated sexual assault. (76-3-405, 6)

Aggravated Exploitation of Prostitution:

Exploiting prostitution is using some form of force or threat, or instilling fear to persuade a person obtained, transported, or compelled to perform an act of prostitution. This is a second-degree felony. (Utah Code 76-10-1305,6)

Aggravated Human Trafficking:

This crime occurs if, while committing the crime of human trafficking, the offense leads to serious physical injury or death of the trafficked person, involves rape, sodomy, or another sex crime specified in the Utah Code, or involves 10 or more victims, or a victim trafficked for more than 30 days consecutively. This is a first-degree felony. (76-5-308, 310)

Bigamy and Polygamy:

Polygamy happens when a person knowingly has more than one spouse or is aware that the person to whom he or she is married has another spouse. (Utah Code 76-7-101) If you are arrested for this crime, you will need a Utah sex crime attorney to represent you.

Child Pornography:

A visual depiction, whether a live exhibition, film, photo, video, or digital image, of sexually explicit activity involving a minor. (76-5b-S103)

Child Rape:

This crime occurs when a person has sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 14. Child rape is a first degree felony in Utah. It’s punishable by imprisonment for up to a life term. Some length of imprisonment is mandatory (76-3-406, 76-5-402.1)

Crimes Against Nature:

Now called Offenses Against Public Order and Decency, these crimes against nature involve such crimes as incest, bestiality, sex with minors, prostitution, and public sex.

Custodial Sexual Relations:

This crime occurs when someone engages in sexual activity with a child or another adult over whom he or she holds authority, regardless of consent—for example, a correctional officer having sexual contact with an inmate.

Enticing a Minor:

This crime occurs when a person is knowingly using the internet or text messaging to solicit a minor child, or someone the accused believes is a minor. Enticing a minor involves intent to engage a child in some form of illegal sexual activity. (Code 76-4-401)

Exposing Minor to Pornography:

Exposing a minor to pornography occurs when someone presents any form of pornography to a minor with intent to appeal to a minor’s libidinous interest in sex, is offensive to general adult standards for minors; and overall does not have legitimate informative value for minors. (76-10-1201)

Forcible Sexual Abuse:

This crime occurs when a person touches a victim’s genitals, buttocks, skin of a female victim’s breast, or other prohibited body part, or when he/she takes indecent liberties without a victim’s consent or being aware that the victim could not consent. Forcible sexual abuse must involve intent to inflict substantial bodily pain or emotional pain to a person, or to arouse or gratify any person’s sexual desires when the victim is under age 14. (Code 76-5-4)

Incest:

Incest crime occurs when a person’s actions do not amount to aggravated sexual assault, rape, or rape of a child, etc., when he/she is knowingly engaging in sexual intercourse with someone who is family related to him/her, or when a male knowingly provides or women at least age 18 knowingly receives seminal fluid or provides or receives a human egg for placement into the vagina of a related person by some method other than engaging in sexual intercourse. (76-7-102)

Indecent Exposure:

This crime is generally described as someone exposing his or her genitals in public. This crime can include some seemingly harmless acts, like mooning, but severe punishments, even including jail time, can result from committing this type of sex crime in Utah.

Internet Sex Crimes:

Online undercover police operations can involve posing as children to communicate with potential internet sex criminals. It is not necessary for an actual child to be involved in order for the police to enforce the law.

Lewd Conduct:

This crime occurs when a person engages in a sexual act publicly or where he/she knows it will alarm someone 14 years old or older. (Code 76-9-702) You should contact an experienced sex crime lawyer to help you avoid conviction and a criminal record in this kind of case.

Lewdness Involving a Child:

May include acts such as masturbating in public while purposefully trying to offend, flashing someone, or other such acts of sexual exhibition. (Breastfeeding is not classed as this or any other crime in Utah.) This is a class B misdemeanor or a class C misdemeanor if a child is involved. (76-9-702.5)

Molestation Defense:

Defending yourself against an untrue accusation of child molestation may include getting to the bottom of the account of an adult who was misinformed, or of a child who has not communicated clearly, or has overreacted to an innocent occurrence, or a deliberate false accusation. An experienced child molestation lawyer will also discover whether a child has said something with an innocent meaning that an adult has taken wrong.

Object Rape:

This crime occurs when someone causes genital or anal penetration of a person aged 14 or older by a foreign object to cause substantial bodily pain or emotional pain to arouse sexual desire in anyone without the victim’s consent. (76-5-402.2)

Prostitution:

Under Utah law, prostitution occurs when a person engages in any sexual activity with someone else in exchange for money or some other form of compensation, or is an occupant in a prostitution house, or is loitering in a public space to be hired to perform sex acts.

Rape:

An individual commits this first-degree felony by having sexual intercourse with someone without the person’s consent, whether the individual is married or not. (76-5-402) If you are charged with rape, you will need the best sex crime defense attorney Utah offers.

Statutory Rape:

This crime occurs when a person knows or reasonably should know that she or he is engaging in sexual activity with a minor who is at least 7 to 10 years younger than herself/himself. (76-5-401.1)

Sex Offender Registry:

Along with jail or prison sentences, fines, and parole or probation, a person convicted of a sex crime in Utah may also be required to register in the Utah sex offender registry for a period of up to life. An experienced sex crime attorney can work to help have your charges dismissed or reduced or have your sentence reduced, including the registry requirement. Learn More

Sextortion:

Intentionally coercing a victim to produce or distribute sexually explicit photos, videos, or other imagery of someone naked or engaging in sexual activity.

Sexual Abuse:

A sex crime that does not amount to rape, sodomy, or another sex crime but in which the perpetrator touches a person’s genitals or otherwise takes indecent liberties. Sexual abuse must be without the victim’s consent and with intent to substantially harm him or her physically or emotionally or to arouse or gratify anyone sexually. (76-5-404)

Sexual Abuse of a Child or Minor:

This crime occurs when someone touches a child sexually or induces a child to perform an indecent act on the perpetrator with the intention of causing significant bodily pain or emotional pain, or with the intention of arousing someone.

Sexual Acts Without Consent:

These are incidents in which someone commits a sexual act on a person forcibly, by compelling them, or with someone who is incapable of consenting because he/she is mentally or physically incapacitated, or is not of a legal age to consent.

Sexual Assault:

This crime occurs when someone intentionally touches a person’s genitals or another intimate body part or forces a person to touch such body parts without his or her consent. This crime may be charged when the perpetrator’s actions do not amount to rape, sodomy, object rape, or an attempt to commit one of those or other sex crimes. Sexual assault is a second or first degree felony.

Sexual Battery:

A sexual battery crime occurs when a person intentionally touches the genitals, buttocks, or a female person’s breast when the body part is either clothed or unclothed when the actor knows or should know the action will probably cause alarm to or offend the person. (76-9-702.1)

Sexual Exploitation of a Vulnerable Adult:

This crime occurs when someone knowingly produces, has in his/her possession, views, or intentionally distributes pornography with a vulnerable adult depicted in the images, or when the vulnerable adult’s legal guardian knowingly allows the vulnerable adult to be sexually exploited. This is a third-degree felony. (76-5b-202)

Sexual Exploitation of a Minor:

This crime occurs when someone knowingly produces, has possession of child pornography, or has possession of it with intent to distribute it, or intentionally views or distributes it. It also occurs when a parent or legal guardian knowingly allows a minor to be a victim of sexual exploitation. (76-5b-201)

Sexual Harassment:

This is any type of sexual discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, pregnancy, etc. Sexual harassment involves an unwanted sexual advance or other such conduct. (This can be more serious when an explicit or implicit understanding that the victim’s future with the company requires submission to the harassment, or when it hinders the victim’s work performance.)

Sexual harassment photo - Sexual crime lawyer Salt Lake City, UT

Sexual Misconduct:

Sexual Misconduct is a general term for the majority of unwanted sexual actions. It covers any sex acts, behaviors, and related crimes, such as harassment, assault, etc.

Sexual Solicitation:

A person commits sexual solicitation if he/she agrees to commit a sexual act with someone for a fee or some form of compensation equal to a fee (such as a trade). (76-10-1313)

Sodomy:

The crime of sodomy is engaging in a sex act with someone who is at least age 14 that involves one person’s genitals and the other’s anus or mouth. (76-5-403)

Soliciting a Minor:

This occurs when someone knowingly utilizes the Internet or text messaging to entice a minor, or a person the perpetrator believes is a minor, to participate in illegal sexual activity. (76-4-401)

Unlawful Sexual Activity With a Minor:

This crime occurs when a perpetrator commits a sex offense that does not amount to rape or another sex crime listed in the statute or causes the penetration of the vagina or anal opening of a minor by any means with an intent to cause significant emotional or physical pain to the victim or to arouse or gratify sexual desire in any person. A minor is someone at least age 14 but under age 16. (76-5-401)

Unlawful Sexual Conduct With a 16 or 17-Year-Old:

(Called statutory rape in other states.) This crime happens when an adult engages in illegal sexual activity with a minor 16 or 17 years old. The sexual activity is illegal because of the fact that the child is legally too young to consent. There are no allegations of rape or other sex crime from the victim. (76-5-401.2)

Voyeurism:

This is observing or intentionally using a camera, video recorder, or other equipment concealed to view or record an individual in order to view a part of the person’s body while the person can reasonably expect privacy. Voyeurism can occur whether the body part is clothed or not. (Utah Code 76-9-702.7)



Penalties for Sex Crime Convictions in Utah

Utah law distinguishes between first, second, and third degrees of sex crimes on the sex crimes list above based on the severity of the offense, and the state assigns punishments for convictions and sex offender registration requirements accordingly.

Misdemeanor Sex Crimes (Classes A, B, and C):

A Class C misdemeanor sex crime is punishable by a maximum of 90 days of jail time and up to $750 in fines. A Class B misdemeanor carries penalties of up to 6 months jail time and a maximum fine of $1,000. The penalties for a Class A misdemeanor sex crime can include a maximum of one year in jail and up to a $2,500 fine.

Felony Sex Crimes (1st, 2nd, and 3rd Degrees)

In Utah, the penalties for a third-degree felony sex crime, such as indecent exposure, can include 5 years of prison time and up to $5,500 in fines. For a second-degree offense, such as sexual exploitation of a minor, the punishments can include up to a 15-year prison sentence and up to a $10,000 fine. A first-degree offense, such as rape, is punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment and a fine of $10,000.

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The Wasatch Defense Lawyers can effectively handle all types of sex crime cases in Utah. More importantly, we know how to protect your quality of life and freedom. Call the Wasatch Defense Lawyers in Salt Lake City to schedule a FREE no obligation sex crime case review!

Top-Rated Sex Crime Defense Attorney Salt Lake City

If you’ve been accused of a sex crime, time is not on your side. You need a sexual crime lawyer who is dedicated to protecting your rights. You also need someone who is going to support you every step of the way. Here at Wasatch Defense Attorneys, our highly qualified sentencing experts can:

  • Keep you out of jail,
  • Avoid felony convictions,
  • Make sure you have no permanent record, and
  • Resolve everything quickly so you can get back to your life.

Award Winning Sexual Crime Lawyer Salt Lake City, UT

Other sex crimes defense attorneys can leave you in the dark, but we never will. We guarantee a high level of personal attention to all of our clients that begins the minute we get your case. Our reliable, responsive lawyers immediately get to work reducing the charges against you or even getting the whole case dropped.

Sex crime cases are always difficult and often require a trial by jury. You don’t want to go with an experienced counsel or even worse, unrepresented. Wasatch Defense Lawyers have handled hundreds of jury trials and won numerous acquittals on sex cases. For your own peace of mind, let us help you.

Schedule a FREE, Confidential Sexual Crime Case Review with a Sex Crimes Defense Lawyer in Salt Lake City
Payment Plans and Military Discounts Available!

Why Choose the Wasatch Defense Lawyers

Payment Plans and Military Discounts Available!

Sex crimes in Utah carry heavy penalties, and you need a lawyer who is experienced in criminal defense to protect your rights. The Wasatch Defense Lawyers in Salt Lake City, Utah can provide you with aggressive defense representation. We understand the gravity of sex crime accusations and will work tirelessly to defend you.

Our top-rated sex crime defense attorneys in Salt Lake City have a proven track record of success in helping clients avoid jail time, felony convictions, and permanent records. We pride ourselves on providing personal attention to every client and working to resolve cases quickly so that you can return to your life.

We know that sex offenses can be difficult and often require a trial by jury. That’s why our skilled defense attorneys have handled hundreds of jury trials and won numerous acquittals on sex cases. We guarantee a high level of personal attention to all of our clients, and we immediately get to work reducing charges or even getting the entire case dropped.

Sex Crimes Defense Attorney Near You in SLC, UT.

Have You Been Accused of a Sex Crime in Utah? Contact the Wasatch Defense Lawyers in Salt Lake City, Utah

We offer payment plans and military discounts so don’t let financial concerns prevent you from seeking the legal representation you need in Salt Lake City, Utah.

  • North Salt Lake
  • Salt Lake City
  • South Salt Lake
  • Centerville
  • Bountiful
  • West Bountiful
  • Woods Cross
  • Millcreek
  • Murray
  • Midvale
  • West Valley City
  • West Jordan
  • Taylorsville
  • Kearns
  • Holladay
  • Sandy
  • Draper
  • Cottonwood Heights

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