Rape of a Child and Physical Child Abuse Sentencing

On October 8, 2021 the Office of the Salt Lake County District Attorney filed three first-degree felony charges against Dalton Elliott Johnson for raping a child multiple times from the time she was 11 until she was 13. On the same day, Mr. Johnson was also charged with two class A misdemeanor child abuse charges for physically hurting the same girl and a 7-year-old girl.

 

After a three-day jury trial in early March, last week a Third District Court judge sentenced Mr. Johnson to 25 years to life for each first-degree felony charge of rape of a child, to run concurrently. The judge also sentenced Mr. Johnson to 364 days in jail for each class A misdemeanor charge of child abuse involving physical injury, to run concurrently.

 

“It took courage for the young survivor to come forward years after Mr. Johnson began committing these crimes. We never want any of our children to suffer in silence through abuse. We applaud the survivor’s willingness to stand up for not only herself but also the other child physically abused by Mr. Johnson,” said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill. “We would like to thank our lead prosecutors Jared Stensrud and Tamara Basquez, as well as their support staff, for their excellent work on this case. We would also like to thank our partners at the West Jordan Police Department for collecting the necessary evidence to help successfully prosecute these crimes.