DUCHESNE COUNTY, Utah, Sept. 27, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — A Sandy man has been charged with holding a teenage girl prisoner in Duchesne County for more than a month in 2014, forcing her to eat excrement and perform sex acts in exchange for food and water.
Jared Stephen Morgan, 37, was charged last week in 8th District Court with aggravated human trafficking, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, forcible sodomy, and rape. All are first-degree felonies, and are punishable by a maximum of life in prison.
Morgan was booked Friday into the Salt Lake County jail, where he remains in lieu of $100,000 bail.
According to court documents, the alleged victim was 17 in 2013 when she met Morgan, after her mother began dating him. The alleged victim, now 20, told law officials that she, her siblings and her mother had stayed at Morgan’s cabin, in Duchesne County, and that Morgan became a father figure to her and asked her to call him “Papa.”
The woman said she was 17 when Morgan invited her to his cabin to help care for some puppies, but she arrived to find there weren’t enough cots. Morgan allegedly told the victim she would have to sleep with him, and when she did, he kissed her the first time and on the second night, he performed sex acts on her.
The woman told investigators she was uncomfortable, but she had been sexually inexperienced at the time, and did not know how to respond.
The alleged victim returned to the cabin a year later with Morgan, she reported. After they had a fight, the woman, who was then 18, said Morgan locked her in a shed and left her there for weeks, telling her she would have to eat rat feces and drink urine before she could have food.
The alleged victim said that after she did, she was given a small cup of water and a cold can of ravioli. After that, the woman said in her statement, Morgan would provide food and water only after she performed sex acts. The alleged victim said Morgan often was armed with a firearm or stun gun during sex acts.
The woman said she was held in the shed from the beginning of June 2014 through the middle of July, about six weeks.
The alleged victim said Morgan then drove her back to her home, in Sandy, and threatened to “end” her if she told anyone what had happened.
The alleged victim also told investigators Morgan had told her about a runaway from Sandy whom he had kept in the shed in 2012.
In August 2012, Morgan was charged in Salt Lake County with five first-degree felonies for allegedly sexually abusing a Sandy girl. Those charges later were dropped without prejudice, which means the charges can be refiled.
