Speaker 1: Topics featured in this episode may be disturbing to some listeners.
Speaker 1: Please take care while listening.
Speaker 2: He treated me so poorly, me and my mother unfair
Speaker 2: and it's rude and I don't want.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 4: Ever, I'm asking for you to send.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal Episode four.
Speaker 4: Aveya.
Speaker 1: On our last episode, you heard the sentencing hearing for
Speaker 1: Jason Linton. He pled guilty to one count of sexual
Speaker 1: exploitation of a minor and two counts of voyeurism. His
Speaker 1: stepdaughter of Aya, made a plead to the judge to
Speaker 1: send him to prison. Would Jason go to jail or
Speaker 1: be set free? That decision was in the hands of
Speaker 1: Judge Mettler.
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you everyone for your input the thinking about
Speaker 5: this for a while. This is a tough one and
Speaker 5: that court makes decisions concerning sentencing. The court really is
Speaker 5: balancing ways in.
Speaker 6: Which the victim can be made whole, which, frankly, it's
Speaker 6: pretty unusual when the victim can truly be made whole.
Speaker 4: Rehabilitating that the bennet is an important factor. And then
Speaker 4: of course punish.
Speaker 6: Chop. Pronography is a horrible thing, and a victimizes so
Speaker 6: many young girls on boys and it's terrible, but.
Speaker 4: The layers in charges here are really serious.
Speaker 6: The position of trust that you help with respect to
Speaker 6: your stepdaughter, violating that in the way that you did.
Speaker 4: I agree with mister Sutton that they really take this
Speaker 4: case to a different rolem and warrant some prey significant punishment. Okay.
Speaker 6: So for the crown of sexual exploitation of mind or
Speaker 6: second three felony for what's going to pose a term
Speaker 6: of utestay prison not less than one for more than
Speaker 6: fifteen years, and for each town of lawyers in both
Speaker 6: class A Missioner Sport's going to pose a term in
Speaker 6: jail not to receive three hundred and sixty four days.
Speaker 4: Sport's going one.
Speaker 2: Of the two lawyers account on concurrence to one on
Speaker 2: are consecutive to the prison Sertens imposed on the sexual
Speaker 2: exploitation from minor account. And on the second and three felony,
Speaker 2: Qurt's going to suspend that sentence and placed mister Lynn
Speaker 2: on formation for forty eight months to be supervised.
Speaker 4: By AP and P.
Speaker 1: To put it simply, Jason got less than a year
Speaker 1: of jail time for both voyeurism charges and would need
Speaker 1: to register as a sex offender less than one year.
Speaker 1: How is that even possible? I really thought this type
Speaker 1: of crime carried a hefty prison sentence, but that's not
Speaker 1: the case. We'll get into that later on in the episode.
Speaker 1: Not to mention the one to fifteen year sentence for
Speaker 1: sexual exploitation of a minor, It was suspended, meaning he
Speaker 1: wouldn't need to serve it if he doesn't violate probation.
Speaker 1: After Judge Metler rendered her sentence, an officer came and
Speaker 1: handcuffed Jason.
Speaker 4: He was going immediately to Salt Lake County Jail.
Speaker 1: Now Avea, the victim of his voyeurism, could start to
Speaker 1: catch her breath and not fear seeing him out and about,
Speaker 1: and Ashley could really start to rebuild, but nothing would be.
Speaker 4: The same as before Jason was arrested.
Speaker 1: We wanted to see how Avea was doing after Jason
Speaker 1: was sentenced, so about a month after the hearing, I
Speaker 1: met Ashley and Avea at home in Riverton. Do you
Speaker 1: guys mind just talking into the microphones just so we
Speaker 1: can do some level checks?
Speaker 7: Okay, your turn, but.
Speaker 8: Great.
Speaker 1: It was really nice to meet a via face to face.
Speaker 1: She is Ashley's mini me, though she's taller than her mom,
Speaker 1: but everyone is taller than Ashley. What struck me about
Speaker 1: Avea was her confidence and her maturity. She seemed wise
Speaker 1: beyond her years. And I just wanted to remind you
Speaker 1: that her court sponsored therapist supported her participation in the podcast,
Speaker 1: and she was open with her feelings starting with Jason's
Speaker 1: sentencing hearing.
Speaker 4: So, Avea, when I talked to your mom a few
Speaker 4: months before the sentencing hearing, she didn't think you would
Speaker 4: go to court, but it looks like you changed your mind. Why.
Speaker 7: I'd really thought about it, and so when I went
Speaker 7: in there, I had a whole bunch of things that
Speaker 7: I wanted to say to the judge and Jason, and
Speaker 7: I wanted to at least try and make an impact
Speaker 7: on it. I didn't want to be just like a bystander,
Speaker 7: don't want to just do nothing. Before he got locked up,
Speaker 7: I'd be laying in bed some nights and I'd just
Speaker 7: sit there and thinking, like, you hope no one's out there.
Speaker 7: You know, someone's looking, someone's creeping, Like you get that feeling,
Speaker 7: you know, But ever since he got locked up, I
Speaker 7: don't had that feeling.
Speaker 1: I'm really happy you haven't had that feeling, because that
Speaker 1: must have been really scary.
Speaker 4: It's hard to imagine not feeling safe in your own home.
Speaker 1: And I really don't know how you processed and navigated
Speaker 1: that as a teenager.
Speaker 7: None of us knew how to express our emotions because
Speaker 7: we were all so sad. But we were all like
Speaker 7: yet so upset about.
Speaker 4: What had happened, and we still loved him.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we still loved him, like we felt like it
Speaker 7: was wrong too, because we were like, we were like, oh, well,
Speaker 7: he was our dad, like he was my dad, Like
Speaker 7: I loved him, like I loved the guy that he was,
Speaker 7: but like, I don't know who this is it. I'd
Speaker 7: put in so much trust into him because my dad
Speaker 7: wasn't there, and so he had taken on that role
Speaker 7: being my dad. So I had trusted him so much
Speaker 7: and I had really let him into my life. And
Speaker 7: I was just morely mad though that he had torn
Speaker 7: up our family. He had broke our family, and he
Speaker 7: had you know, hurt my mom and my brother and
Speaker 7: my sister, and what he did to me, I was
Speaker 7: definitely I was pretty heard about.
Speaker 1: A lot of your family members mentioned to me that
Speaker 1: you were a serious soccer player, but this whole experience
Speaker 1: just made competing impossible.
Speaker 7: What happened there at ourself. You have to have good
Speaker 7: grades to be on the team no matter what, and
Speaker 7: you can't miss more than two days of school, Like
Speaker 7: there's some new rules and things like that. And if
Speaker 7: you're going to an athletic school, you're going to be
Speaker 7: around some concaast people all day.
Speaker 4: But there was some cool people.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, yeah there was. There are some pretty
Speaker 7: awesome people there. But can get dressed up every day?
Speaker 7: You know that That was really hard for me, And
Speaker 7: so I was so overwhelmed with everything that I just
Speaker 7: I didn't want to be around people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds to me like you just needed a breather.
Speaker 1: So you switched to an alternative school. And just to
Speaker 1: be clear for people listening and just to make sure
Speaker 1: I'm understanding it right, all that means is it's a
Speaker 1: school that educates kids differently than a typical public school. Actually,
Speaker 1: I know you had a lot of dreams pinned up
Speaker 1: on a vea soccer. Were you on board with her leaving?
Speaker 1: Was that hard for you?
Speaker 8: I mean we definitely struggled your whole life. We've had
Speaker 8: like this one plan soccer scholarships California, California. But I
Speaker 8: guess that I'm hearing and I didn't realize. I mean,
Speaker 8: you don't want to be around all those people. And
Speaker 8: then they knew this awful secret.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 8: It wasn't just like one thing, it was kind of
Speaker 8: all of it was so piled up on.
Speaker 7: You that yeah, yeah, definitely. The reason why I wanted
Speaker 7: to go to Valley was it was a way better
Speaker 7: alternative for me. I was succeeding a lot more. I
Speaker 7: was on on a roll. When you go to an
Speaker 7: alternative school, too, people are there to get their shit done.
Speaker 7: Like there's people that are there that have kids and
Speaker 7: they're sitting in the day Like we have a daycare
Speaker 7: at our school too, Like we'll have people that have kids.
Speaker 7: They go and do some homework, and you could show
Speaker 7: up with the messy button your hair and all makeup.
Speaker 7: No one would care. That's another reason why I really
Speaker 7: like Valley too, is because it's like a really not
Speaker 7: judge mental area.
Speaker 8: I kind of felt like I just had to trust
Speaker 8: what you were doing, even if I didn't think it
Speaker 8: was like best choice, you know, Like I wanted you
Speaker 8: to play soccer and you're beast yeah, you're amazing on
Speaker 8: the field. Yeah, you know, and I get that, like
Speaker 8: your passion for it's not there anymore.
Speaker 4: I get it. And you also have a job, right.
Speaker 7: I work at a daycare. I'm an opener, so I
Speaker 7: get there at six o'clock in the morning and I
Speaker 7: basically watch kids from the age five months all the
Speaker 7: way up to like ten years old. And yeah, I
Speaker 7: love it. I love my job.
Speaker 4: Why did you want to participate in this project?
Speaker 7: So when my mother had first told me about this project,
Speaker 7: I kind of was like, what is she? Like she's crazy,
Speaker 7: like she has lost her mind, like something is wrong
Speaker 7: with her, Like she is seriously batshit crazy. She thinks
Speaker 7: that she's getting on a damn podcast. And so when
Speaker 7: she had finally started getting into depth with everything, I
Speaker 7: was actually thought that it was really cool. I want
Speaker 7: to be able to impact other people. I want to
Speaker 7: be able to talk to other people, let other people
Speaker 7: know that, like, they're not alone in these kinds of situations,
Speaker 7: and that I know exactly how they feel. It's okay
Speaker 7: to not be okay for a minute, and that eventually
Speaker 7: you're going to get back up on your feet. There
Speaker 7: may be road bumps, but but definitely get back up
Speaker 7: on your feet.
Speaker 1: You know, Ashley, I know you wrote into us on
Speaker 1: a very bad day, but Avea. I think there are
Speaker 1: two reasons your mom wanted to do this, put her
Speaker 1: life out in public, share her story. One is to
Speaker 1: look for a community because we know this is happening
Speaker 1: in a lot of other homes, but also because she
Speaker 1: wants to let you know some things.
Speaker 8: Right after it happened and Jason went to jail, that
Speaker 8: whole first month was kind of a blur, I feel
Speaker 8: like for.
Speaker 7: All of us. Yeah, I definitely was.
Speaker 8: But after he got out of jail, do you remember
Speaker 8: remember me going over to his grandpa's house to see him?
Speaker 8: What did you think about?
Speaker 6: That?
Speaker 7: Just kind of frustrated me? How does didn't understand?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I think looking back on that time, there's a couple
Speaker 8: of things that I wish I would have done differently,
Speaker 8: but I didn't. And one of those things is, you know,
Speaker 8: when he got out, I kind of switched back into
Speaker 8: WiFi mode.
Speaker 1: And just for clarity, Ashley, you're talking about after Jason
Speaker 1: was arrested and then released, before he pled guilty, so
Speaker 1: before the sentencing here, right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I was trying to manage our family, you know,
Speaker 8: you and your brother and sister less still be his wife.
Speaker 8: And even like with everything that happened, there wasn't a
Speaker 8: lot of people in like your corner when we should
Speaker 8: have been when we found out that this happened, we
Speaker 8: should have cocooned around you. It wasn't your job to
Speaker 8: step up and be MANI mom, while I was having
Speaker 8: a meltdown. That wasn't your job. And I think us
Speaker 8: not doing that pushed you away. And I'm so sorry
Speaker 8: that wasn't fair to you. That was why I stayed
Speaker 8: with my dad.
Speaker 7: It was the only one that was really in my corner.
Speaker 7: He was lonely. He was the only one that really
Speaker 7: stood up and as are you. Okay, No, that's why
Speaker 7: I stayed there. And at the beginning of all this too,
Speaker 7: it was all such like a big like shock to
Speaker 7: all of us.
Speaker 8: It's not a good excuse though.
Speaker 7: But no, like the thing is too, I really don't
Speaker 7: remember like everything you know. I'm telling you right now, Mo,
Speaker 7: I'm like we were all in shock, Like everyone had
Speaker 7: to write to be in shock in that situation, and
Speaker 7: you were definitely in shock, and I was too. I'm
Speaker 7: not mad at you, I'm really, I'm really not mad
Speaker 7: at you.
Speaker 8: Maybe you're not right now, well maybe someday you might be.
Speaker 7: Though maybe someday I might will be. But also maybe
Speaker 7: a point where I'm not ever going to be mad
Speaker 7: at you, Like this is not your fault. I'm telling you,
Speaker 7: like from this point right now, like in my life,
Speaker 7: like i am not mad at my mother whatsoever. Like
Speaker 7: I'm beyond proud of my mother, beyond anything.
Speaker 8: I love you.
Speaker 7: I love you, yeah forever.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of the series, I told you that
Speaker 1: we had received several letters about families being destroyed because
Speaker 1: the husband was looking at illegal images of children online
Speaker 1: like Jason, and I will freely admit, before we really investigated,
Speaker 1: I assumed these offenders are put away for a long time.
Speaker 1: I really thought the law threw the book at them,
Speaker 1: they were off the street. But when I met Ashley
Speaker 1: and other women who reached out, I learned that isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily the case. Even as I record this episode, Jason
Speaker 1: is halfway through his sentence and will be out in
Speaker 1: the community in the not too distant future. And you
Speaker 1: might be asking yourself, why should I care? Jason Litton,
Speaker 1: isn't my husband or my son or my brother. Here's
Speaker 1: why you should care. There aren't enough prisons in the
Speaker 1: world to hold all the people who are looking at
Speaker 1: this material. It's insane. These offenders are in your neighborhood
Speaker 1: and mine. They are blue collar, white collar doctors, lawyers,
Speaker 1: construction workers, teachers, clergy, police officers. They encompass every walk
Speaker 1: of life. I didn't realize how uninformed I was on
Speaker 1: this topic. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Speaker 1: received over twenty nine million tips just last year alone
Speaker 1: from online companies like Facebook, Google and others that detect
Speaker 1: these images. And here's something else I learned. Even the
Speaker 1: words child pornography.
Speaker 4: Are a problem.
Speaker 1: As I reached out to law enforcement and talked with
Speaker 1: people who work with victims, I discovered that they use
Speaker 1: the term child sexual abuse material. So why haven't I
Speaker 1: heard this term before? Probably because it's not in the media.
Speaker 1: It's not good clickbait. A headline that says local coach
Speaker 1: arrested for child porn is going to get a lot
Speaker 1: more attraction than local coach arrested for child sexual abuse material.
Speaker 1: Just the way it is. But here's why it matters
Speaker 1: to victims. Online pornography usually refers to adults who have
Speaker 1: consented to be filmed, but that's never the case. When
Speaker 1: the images depict children, it is abuse. These are pictures
Speaker 1: of crimes that have already been committed. Children can't legally
Speaker 1: consent to sex, they can't consent to having images of
Speaker 1: their abuse recorded and distributed. So child sexual abuse material
Speaker 1: is a more accurate description, but it's also a mouthful.
Speaker 1: So often the term sesam is used for short. Look,
Speaker 1: no one ever imagines that someone they love would do this.
Speaker 1: I feel for victims like a vea. I feel for
Speaker 1: mothers and wives just like Ashley. I feel for anyone
Speaker 1: whose life is upended by discovering a family member is involved.
Speaker 1: So I really wanted to know why is seesam so
Speaker 1: prevalent and lurking under the radar, and what is law
Speaker 1: enforcement and the justice system up against to keep families
Speaker 1: like Ashley's safe.
Speaker 9: In the nineties, child sexual abuse reports were predominantly handled by.
Speaker 4: The US Postal Service, who was.
Speaker 9: Responsible for intercepting things like magazines and that type of
Speaker 9: contraband that would be sent around.
Speaker 1: That's Gabriel Dance. He is a reporter for the New
Speaker 1: York Times, and in twenty nineteen he and his colleague
Speaker 1: Michael Keller published a groundbreaking investigative series called Exploited, which
Speaker 1: documented how seesam has exploded along with the growth of
Speaker 1: the Internet and social media.
Speaker 9: What we know is that with the advent of cell
Speaker 9: phones and the Internet, there was both the opportunity to
Speaker 9: produce material much more easily and also the opportunity to
Speaker 9: distribute that material much more widely.
Speaker 1: The Internet also provided the opportunity for people with similar
Speaker 1: interests to get together, learn from each other, and create
Speaker 1: online clubs, which is fine when you're talking about baking
Speaker 1: or car repair, but this is an underground that shares
Speaker 1: information on seesam how to acquire it, produce it, and
Speaker 1: hide it. Average citizens are downloading and viewing this material.
Speaker 1: Some states get three thousand cyber tips a day. New
Speaker 1: York Times reporter Michael Keller.
Speaker 10: One question that we heard a lot was, well, what's
Speaker 10: the big deal? They're just sharing images? Why is that
Speaker 10: so bad? Why should someone be punished for that? And
Speaker 10: in speaking with survivors of the abuse, we really understood
Speaker 10: that it is the ongoing trade in imagery that makes
Speaker 10: this that much more serious and harmful to the people involved.
Speaker 10: We spoke with two sisters synonymously who were abused by
Speaker 10: their father, who couldn't show their faces because there are
Speaker 10: people online trying to find them and track them down,
Speaker 10: and it prevents them from living a normal life. And
Speaker 10: that is due to the ongoing trade in the images
Speaker 10: well passed the actual abuse.
Speaker 9: These are people who have had one of the worst
Speaker 9: crimes you could possibly imagine, documented and shared for the
Speaker 9: pleasure of other people.
Speaker 1: Former Utah United States Attorney John Hubert.
Speaker 11: This goes on constantly, dozens upon hundreds of cases where
Speaker 11: you have these images and collections and trading images and
Speaker 11: bartering them like their baseball cards. And it's those run
Speaker 11: of the meal offenders that I am so concerned about
Speaker 11: because they're not getting the attention in court or according
Speaker 11: to state law that I believe they should. During my
Speaker 11: tenure as a United States attorney, we were getting some
Speaker 11: pushback from federal judges of why are you bringing these
Speaker 11: cases people looking at pictures? You know, what's the big deal?
Speaker 11: This is in federal court, And so we thought that
Speaker 11: was a misunderstanding and that we need to communicate better
Speaker 11: to the judges what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: You can probably imagine Ashley's surprised when she first learned
Speaker 1: what kind of justice Jason would be facing.
Speaker 8: The prosecutor made it sound like he's not going to
Speaker 8: go to prison and the most time that he's going
Speaker 8: to do.
Speaker 7: Is probably six months in jail.
Speaker 8: That was pretty normal for this type of events, and
Speaker 8: I'm like, are you kidding?
Speaker 1: The punishment just didn't seem to fit the crime. This
Speaker 1: doesn't just upset victims, it also demoralizes law enforcement. Riverton
Speaker 1: detective Jason Rue was one of the first who looked
Speaker 1: at the hidden file and had to view the evidence.
Speaker 3: It frustrates me, especially with these kind of crimes. It's
Speaker 3: a lifelong sentence for these victims, and not just the victim,
Speaker 3: but the victim's mom or the victim's dead or whoever
Speaker 3: else might know this in the family. And you're letting
Speaker 3: them out in six months to a year with probation
Speaker 3: for four That means basically someone's coming to check up
Speaker 3: on them every now and then asking if they're doing okay.
Speaker 1: And if you're waiting for the federal government to jump
Speaker 1: on the problem, don't hold your breath.
Speaker 10: We found systemic failures in responding to this rising problem,
Speaker 10: and one of the big things was the failures of
Speaker 10: the federal government to live up to its own promises
Speaker 10: that it made around two thousand and eight to develop
Speaker 10: a strong national response. That involved creating a high level
Speaker 10: position at the Department of Justice. It required analyzing the
Speaker 10: issue every few years and creating national strategy reports, and
Speaker 10: it required creating a funding mechanism for state and local
Speaker 10: investigators dedicated to doing these investigations. Who called Internet crimes
Speaker 10: against Children's task Forces. There's at least one in every state.
Speaker 10: And what we found was that the government had not
Speaker 10: really followed through on its grand plans. You know, these
Speaker 10: reports have risen, arrests have gone up slightly over the years,
Speaker 10: but federal funding to these special task forces has largely
Speaker 10: remained flat. The high goal position at DJ was never
Speaker 10: fully created. The strategy reports that were supposed to come
Speaker 10: out on a regular basis, there's only been two of
Speaker 10: them over the last decade. So we found failures not
Speaker 10: just with the tech companies, but also with the government
Speaker 10: to solve a problem that it's known about for over
Speaker 10: ten years.
Speaker 9: And as a response to our reporting, Senator Ron Wyden
Speaker 9: introduced a bill that was supposed to create nearly two
Speaker 9: hundred positions at federal law enforcement, allotting a total of
Speaker 9: five billion dollars over ten years to address exist exactly
Speaker 9: this problem. And as far as I know, that Bill's
Speaker 9: gone Noway, So.
Speaker 1: Our elected officials in Washington aren't living up to their promises,
Speaker 1: and people like Ashley and the rest of us are
Speaker 1: here scratching our heads at offenders like Jason, thinking you'll
Speaker 1: be out in months?
Speaker 4: Is that really okay?
Speaker 11: So in mister Litton's case, on paper, his crime of
Speaker 11: conviction carries a penalty of one to fifteen years in
Speaker 11: the Utah State Prison. Did he get that?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 11: And in lieu of that he was given days in
Speaker 11: jail and a term of probation.
Speaker 1: You probably remember that Jason's plea agreement tied the judge's
Speaker 1: hands pretty much. And while John Humer thinks the sentence
Speaker 1: fall short, he supports plea bargains, especially in cases like these.
Speaker 11: I think there's a public view that plea bargain is
Speaker 11: a bad word, that that's a sham and a shame.
Speaker 11: It's just a reality. But it is also true that
Speaker 11: in cases of child sexual abuse, that there is a
Speaker 11: reluctance to press every case to trial because what is
Speaker 11: the impact of calling a child witness to the stand
Speaker 11: to be asked questions in an open courtroom about such
Speaker 11: intimate victimization and what does that cost for a victim
Speaker 11: and their family.
Speaker 1: And at the time of sentencing, Sam argued vigorously for
Speaker 1: the most jail time possible considering the existing plea deal.
Speaker 12: In my opinion, that was one step beyond just the
Speaker 12: child pornography possession and just one step below and actual
Speaker 12: hands on sexual offense with a childhood And so it's
Speaker 12: obviously very concerning, it's extremely troubling behavior. And somebody in
Speaker 12: this defendant's position also by is what Utah law calls
Speaker 12: a position of special trust, and that's an aggravator under
Speaker 12: Utah law. And so I felt that this was a
Speaker 12: case where the judge should consider imposing a very significant
Speaker 12: amount of jail time.
Speaker 8: Er.
Speaker 1: But we also emphasize the overarching goal of the DA's
Speaker 1: office isn't just throwing offenders in jail.
Speaker 12: The systems interested not just in imprisoning offenders or putting
Speaker 12: people in custody and locking them away. You know, sometimes
Speaker 12: punishment for punishment's sake is appropriate, but the system generally
Speaker 12: tries to avoid that. In favor of rehabilitating people. We
Speaker 12: don't want this to happen again, So what does it
Speaker 12: take to do that. The end of the day, we're
Speaker 12: dealing with people's freedom, and we're dealing with the trauma
Speaker 12: that's been inflicted on victims, and the system can't go
Speaker 12: back and fix something that happened. But the system is
Speaker 12: often limited in what it can do. The system is
Speaker 12: designed very much to be limited because we don't want
Speaker 12: innocent people being convicted. The system balances that, and it's
Speaker 12: a group of people balancing imperfect questions and imperfect solutions
Speaker 12: and terrible situations.
Speaker 13: But not everyone agrees that is this hope and a
Speaker 13: prayer philosophy that he will change his ways in the
Speaker 13: days of probation and some days in jail, that he.
Speaker 11: Will not reoffend when he is released back into the community.
Speaker 11: That hope and a prayer is exactly what it ends
Speaker 11: up being. What about the community? What about his victims,
Speaker 11: the child victims who are violated by his conduct? How
Speaker 11: much does that cost to put that risk back on
Speaker 11: a family, that risk back on the community at large.
Speaker 11: What is the amount of money that it's worth if
Speaker 11: he does reoffend that in that one to fifteen years.
Speaker 11: He could have or should have been in the Utah
Speaker 11: State Prison. According to the laws of the state of Utah.
Speaker 3: He's not.
Speaker 11: He's out.
Speaker 1: Since Sam Sutton mentioned rehabilitation, I was curious about what
Speaker 1: kind of court mandated treatment was required of Jason or
Speaker 1: someone in Jason's position. This is important to me because
Speaker 1: I want to know what information Ashley will have and
Speaker 1: Aveyo will have. For example, how does one measure rehabilitation?
Speaker 1: How can one know if rehabilitation is successful? I think
Speaker 1: this is important to know when you need to make
Speaker 1: decisions to keep your kids in family safe. His court
Speaker 1: appointed attorney refuse to speak with us. In fact, no
Speaker 1: one in the Public Defender's Office would speak to our production,
Speaker 1: so we tried another avenue.
Speaker 14: So my name is Joel Kittrell and I'm a criminal
Speaker 14: defense lawyer based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Speaker 1: Joel spent five years in the Public Defender's Office before
Speaker 1: going into a private criminal defense practice. He explains what
Speaker 1: steps and programs returning citizens have to go through in
Speaker 1: order to enter back into society.
Speaker 14: Their therapy would include both individual psychotherapy, group therapy focusing
Speaker 14: on victim empathy, and then something that's interesting that a
Speaker 14: lot of people may not know is generally you've got
Speaker 14: to be able to pass polygraphs. While polygraphs aren't admissible
Speaker 14: in court. As we all know, you can't pass a
Speaker 14: polygraph that you haven't viewed child images or haven't acted
Speaker 14: on these impulses, then you may not finish the therapy
Speaker 14: classes that are required of you or the treatment that's
Speaker 14: required of you.
Speaker 15: You know, there'll be some type of overview with a
Speaker 15: dul probation and parole and his parole officer that will
Speaker 15: be making sure that he completes that. If he say
Speaker 15: just quits going or says this is not for me,
Speaker 15: then a warrant would likely issue and you would probably
Speaker 15: be sent to.
Speaker 1: Prison, and unfortunately, he would have lots of company. There
Speaker 1: will never be a shortage of people looking at child
Speaker 1: sexual abuse material because in the past twenty years, the
Speaker 1: problem has evolved to a place that is beyond epidemic.
Speaker 1: It's a public health crisis.
Speaker 9: We spoke with people who said that as early as
Speaker 9: two thousand, tech companies knew this was a very serious
Speaker 9: problem and we're doing nothing to solve it. Two thousand
Speaker 9: and nine, when they introduce scanning technology, we knew that
Speaker 9: it could be effective and helping stem the problem. Still,
Speaker 9: tech companies were not using it.
Speaker 10: I would say, if you talk with most technology policy people,
Speaker 10: their answer would be technology companies don't have that much
Speaker 10: pressure to get rid of harmful content on their platform.
Speaker 1: You can't sue them for what someone posts or sends
Speaker 1: through their platform.
Speaker 10: Section two thirty of the Communications Decency Act shields technology
Speaker 10: companies from any liability for content that users post, So.
Speaker 1: For now law enforcement has to rely on tips those
Speaker 1: companies give to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Speaker 1: But the tips from known social media sites are only
Speaker 1: part of the story. There are plenty of hidden places
Speaker 1: on the dark web defined ce SAM as well. Teams
Speaker 1: of detectives and child advocates are dedicated to finding these offenders. Amazing,
Speaker 1: wonderful people are cracking the codes of hidden websites on
Speaker 1: the dark Net and shutting them down, And one of
Speaker 1: the biggest and most dangerous of those came crashing down
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen. On the next episode of the trial,
Speaker 1: we'll meet a Utah wife and mother who found out
Speaker 1: her husband was one of its subscribers.
Speaker 4: I just started screaming. I remember just dropped to my
Speaker 4: knees and started screaming.
Speaker 1: And later on season two of Betrayal, another mom makes
Speaker 1: a daring escape. I packed that bag and I just
Speaker 1: got in the car and I went to the airport.
Speaker 1: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team,
Speaker 1: email us at Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. That's
Speaker 1: Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. To report a case
Speaker 1: of child sexual exploitation, called the National Center for Missing
Speaker 1: and Exploited Children's cyber Tipline at one eight hundred the Lost.
Speaker 4: If you or someone you.
Speaker 1: Know is worried about their sexual thoughts and feelings towards children,
Speaker 1: reach out to Stop It Now dot org. In the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom go to stop it Now dot org dot UK.
Speaker 1: These organizations can help. We're grateful for your support, and
Speaker 1: one way to show support is by subscribing to our
Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to rate and
Speaker 1: review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A
Speaker 1: big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is
Speaker 1: a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment
Speaker 1: Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive
Speaker 1: produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason and produced by
Speaker 1: me Andrea Gunning. Written and produced by Kerry Hartman, also
Speaker 1: produced by Ben Fetterman Associate producer Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart
Speaker 1: team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: our talent Ashnate Litten. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Alvecchio.
Speaker 1: A trails theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided
Speaker 1: by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,