Investigators: Man sexually assaulted woman in Rec Center parking lot

Bethany Lange, Herald Reporter
Posted 6/1/17

Sean Weston accused of sexual assault

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Investigators: Man sexually assaulted woman in Rec Center parking lot

Posted

EVANSTON — Evanston resident Sean Wayne Weston, 30, has been charged with three felony counts related to sexual misbehavior in the wake of an alleged incident the weekend before Valentine’s Day. The charges have been bound over to district court following his preliminary hearing on Friday, May 26.

The first charge is for first degree sexual assault on a person with a mental disability who, through the disability, is “incapable of appraising the nature of the victim’s conduct.”

Weston, who is represented by public defender Jack Vreeland, is also charged with second degree sexual assault in which the accused used a position of authority to cause the alleged victim to submit to the sexual assault. The third charge is attempted sexual exploitation of a child. 

Weston’s charges encompass two alleged victims, one of whom was discovered during the investigation of the first reported incident. 

In January, the alleged victim (who has a mental disability) hired Weston as a personal trainer, paying $125 for six sessions with no set schedule. However, according to Uinta County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Andy Kopp’s testimony, the 20-year-old woman said Weston was friendly and flirtatious early on but grew steadily persistent. (The sheriff’s office managed the case because the Evanston Police Department was involved with other pressing cases.)

Kopp said Weston and the alleged victim communicated mostly via Facebook Messenger, but also met at the Rec Center and at McDonald’s.

Weston had an agreement with the Rec Center in February 2016 to hold training sessions there, but Evanston Parks and Recreation District Director Jay Dee Nielson said that agreement was terminated in March 2017, after Weston failed to provide proof of certification. He said the center has entered into similar agreements, but only a handful over the past several years. Nielson said Weston was never employed by the Rec Center. 

Kopp said the alleged victim mostly lives on her own, although her mental disability makes it difficult for her to make good judgment and understand money matters. 

Weston allegedly began to make sexual solicitations (asking for photos and videos as well as telling her he could show her sexual things to do), and she eventually tried to dissuade him by saying she was going back to her ex-boyfriend. It didn’t work for long, though, according to Kopp.

Over the course of the two weeks or so, Kopp said at the hearing, the alleged victim did end up sending three “lingerie-type” photos as well as receiving an explicit photo from Weston. But although she allegedly said she felt uncomfortable and tried to stave off his advances, she still did not want to lose the training sessions she had already paid for.

But on Friday, Feb. 10, Kopp said, things came to a head. The two allegedly met for a training session, and afterward, Weston told her that he needed a ride home. Before they went, though, he allegedly asked her to pull into the darker upper levels of the rec center parking lot and had her perform oral sex on him before she drove him home.

The following day, Kopp said, she told Weston via Facebook Messenger that she was done with training. Kopp testified that Weston tried to apologize, saying he could train her and be professional and that he didn’t want to get a bad reputation, and he asked her not to tell anyone. 

While gathering evidence and interviews, Uinta County Sheriff’s Office investigators acquired a search warrant for Weston’s Facebook account and phone. After looking at the rec center’s reports on file about Weston, investigators got a search warrant dating back to 2015. (In September 2015, a man had told rec center employees to contact him immediately if they saw his minor daughter with Weston). The subpoena went through April 15 of this year and brought back 40,000 pages, which Kopp and Deputy Brook Hale reviewed in full. 

Kopp said the Facebook messages matched with what the victim’s interviews had indicated, but also brought up the name of a new alleged victim — a girl who was 15 years old at the time — from whom Weston had received three nude photos. That communication allegedly occurred during the summer of 2015. 

Kopp said at the preliminary hearing that there were sexual communications where Weston asked for visual aids (photo or video), asked her to sneak out to meet with him and said he would run away with her if she was 18. 

Kopp described some of the messages as “very obscene comments.” 

When Kopp contacted the alleged victim’s parents from the 2015 communication, they said they knew of a time when Weston had asked their daughter to babysit overnight but they hadn’t allowed it. Kopp said an interview with the alleged victim also revealed that she and Weston had met at the rec center but that they never met in person otherwise and she never babysat for Weston.

Kopp said the 15-year-old ended the communication by telling Weston she had run from the cops and was out of state, to which Weston responded by asking her to delete their communications.

Kopp also testified that, when the sheriff’s office acquired Weston’s phone via a search warrant and was reviewing it for evidence, there was an attempt to delete the phone’s contents. He said when they spoke with Verizon, the wireless company said the phone’s owner had claimed the phone was stolen and asked the comments to be deleted.

After hearing the evidence, the judge ruled that the charges will be bound over to district court. Weston has posted bond and is prohibited from going to the rec center or contacting the victims or their families. 

Weston has had previous run-ins with the law, including through a burglary charge in 2015 as well as various lesser charges of possessing a controlled plant substance in the fall of 2016 and for two vehicle offenses (speeding and vehicle registration) in 2011, all of which incurred fines.

Nielson said no one at the Rec Center knew about Weston’s criminal background when Weston entered into an agreement to use the center for his personal training business.