UTAH
Huffington Post
By Hayley Miller
A sexual assault survivor was forced to hear a judge call her convicted rapist “an extraordinarily good man” before sentencing him to prison this week.
Utah Judge Thomas Low allegedly held back tears as he sang the praises of Keith Vallejo, a former bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints found guilty of sexually abusing two women in separate incidents dating back to at least 2013, reports local news channel KUTV.
“The court had no doubt that Mr. Vallejo is an extraordinarily good man,” Low told the courtroom Wednesday moments before sentencing Vallejo. “But great men, sometimes do bad things.”
Julia Kirby, who was 19 years old when her brother-in-law assaulted her, said she was appalled by Low’s decision to offer a glowing character assessment of Vallejo.
“That judge shouldn’t have done that,” Kirby told KUTV. “For him to say that in a court room in front the victim who was abused and raped by this man, that he is a great person, to me was unacceptable and unprofessional.”
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