Midvale man charged with assaulting his 17-year-old ‘wife’

MIDVALE, Utah (ABC4) — A Midvale man was charged with allegedly sexually assaulting a 17-year-old who claimed to be his wife and pregnant with his child.

Charges were brought against the 29-year-old man from Midvale in the Third District Court in Salt Lake County on Friday. Due to the sensitive nature of the case, ABC4.com will not be naming the man in order to protect the victim.

The man was charged with two felony counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, two felony counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a 16 or 17-year-old, and one count of assaulting a pregnant person, which is a misdemeanor.

The victim went to the emergency room on May 13 and reported being assaulted by the 29-year-old man. According to court documents, she was still in high school, she lived with the man as a “religious spouse,” and she was 6 weeks pregnant with his child.

According to the filed affidavit, the victim was married to the man when she was 15 years old in an arranged marriage “through the Muslim religion,” and it is not a legally recognized marriage.

Allegedly, after the so-called marriage, she and the man began having sexual intercourse “daily,” and she had been pregnant once before. She reported to the police that she suffered a miscarriage.

The affidavit states that on May 12, the man became violent following an argument, and he lunged at her, hitting and kicking her, “at least 40-50 times.” He allegedly yelled, “I don’t care if I kill you and your baby.” The victim reported that she fell, hit her head, and blacked out.

The investigating detective from Unified Police stated that the victim had “a large golf ball-sized contusion [bump] on the left side of her head,” and her arms were bruised. The victim reported that her head still hurt a day and a half later.