State Sen. J. Stuart Adams, Republican leader of the Utah Senate, once said that transgender athletes put cisgender girls at risk. Now, he’s facing criticism for his help to keep his 18-year-old relative out of jail after he raped a 13-year-old girl.

Adams helped change a state law to give his accused relative a lighter sentence. Adams swears he neither requested nor helped draft the 2024 law that aided his relative, but he did ask for the relative’s rape charges to be reconsidered in light of the new law.

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Utah state law says that people under the age of 14 can never consent to sex, and the old state statute required that 18-year-olds receive a first-degree child rape felony charge for having sex with anyone 13 years old or younger. The felony charge required the rapist to also register as a sex offender. However, the new law allows accused rapists 18 years old and younger to receive a reduced third-degree felony charge of unlawful sexual activity (and avoid jail time and registration as a sex offender) if they’re enrolled in high school.

Before the new law passed, Adams’ relative was charged with two counts of child rape and two counts of child sodomy (all first-degree felonies), and faced up to 25 years to life in prison as well as a lifetime on the sex offender registry. The relative’s plea deal with state prosecutors had reportedly reached an impasse, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

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The new law was drafted by the relative’s defense attorney, Cara Tangaro, and sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore (R) after Adams reportedly confided in him about his relative’s legal charges. The new law, S.B. 213, adjusted various criminal sentences to address “unintended consequences or overly harsh or unfair outcomes” in various criminal charges, Tangaro said.

In this case, the accused rapist had participated in “unlawful adolescent sexual activity,” but he hadn’t also been accused of using force, coercion, or other violent or manipulative means that would support more serious charges of rape, sodomy, or sexual assault. Attorneys also pointed out that, under the old law, if the accused rapist had been 17 and his victim had been 14 years old instead of 13 years old, the accused rapist would’ve been charged with a Class B misdemeanor rather than felony charges.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) signed S.B. 213 into law on March 19, 2024. Two months later, Tangaro informed Judge Michael DiReda, the judge who was then presiding over the case, that the accused rapist’s plea deal would be changed in light of the new law. As a result, the accused rapist avoided jail time and a lifetime on the sexual offender registry.

“While the sponsor of [the bill] was aware of the case, I did not request the legislation and did not intervene or give input on the drafting of the bill,” Adams told The Salt Lake Tribune. According to the state’s legislative database, Adams voted for S.B. 213, which passed almost entirely on party lines: all state senate Republicans voted for it along with one Democrat, while the rest of the Democrats who were present voted against it. One Democrat and four Republicans were absent from that vote.

Adams’ relative received a second-degree felony charge, which Adams points to as proof that the new law didn’t affect the outcome of his relative’s case.

The Tribune noted that the new law wasn’t made retroactive, and the accused rapist wasn’t charged with the new, lower-level crime created by the law. Nevertheless, the new charges and plea deal were still changed in light of the new law’s passage, the publication reported.

The bill’s sponsor in the state House, state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee (R), said she was unaware of the change in the child rape law and now opposes the change, vowing to introduce a repeal of the change in future legislation.

But for now, the accused rapist will serve four years’ probation, complete sex offender treatment, pay a $1,500 fine, and perform 120 hours of community service. The unnamed victim’s mother says she feels that the legal process “has failed them,” the victim’s attorney Tamara Basquez said. The mother said the sexual abuse has made her child, an 8th-grade student, more withdrawn and careful, and less interested in being around her friend.

“[The mother and child] feel really defeated through this entire process,” Basquez told the judge presiding over the case, following the lighter sentencing for the accused child rapist. “She just feels like there’s no protection for the innocence of her [child] and that there’s a disregard for how it really has affected them. They feel that there hasn’t been adequate consequences for the underlying conduct.”

The child’s mother said, “[The legal sentencing change] was out of nowhere. I felt like I was punched in the gut…. I feel like a law is the law, regardless of who you are, but that wasn’t what was going on here. I feel like [the 18-year-old] just got special treatment… and nobody was going to say anything about it.”

Several months after voting for S.B. 213, Adams and other Utah state Republican leaders issued a statement claiming that they were very concerned about the safety of girls and women in the context of transgender people participating in sports.

“Female athletes deserve the right to a safe playing field, fair competition, and equal opportunities,” the statement said. “Institutions across the nation have failed to take action [to ban trans athletes], thereby undermining vital protections and putting female athletes at risk.”

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