UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune
By JESSICA MILLER | The Salt Lake Tribune
Moments after a jury found him guilty of nearly a dozen sex abuse-related crimes, Keith Robert Vallejo walked out of the Provo courthouse last month a free man.
Despite requests from a prosecutor to have him jailed until his April sentencing date, a Utah County judge instead allowed the former Mormon bishop to remain free on bail, and to go home to his wife and eight children.
After three days of testimony, a 4th District Court jury found Vallejo guilty of ten counts of second-degree felony forcible sexual abuse and one count of object rape, a first-degree felony. Two women testified at the trial that he had inappropriately touched them during separate stays at his Provo home in 2013 and 2014.
“I still feel like, even after he’s convicted, no one is really saying he’s guilty,” said Julia Kirby, who was 19 when Vallejo abused her. “Because if they were, why would the judge let him go home to a house full of young girls? I don’t understand why that’s a privilege he’s given, when he’s been convicted. He’s been found guilty. It just, to me, says, ‘Yeah, here a jury of his peers believed you, but this judge doesn’t.’ ”
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