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Utah County prosecutors have dismissed charges against a Sandy man accused of raping a woman on the west side of Utah Lake in February because the alleged victim stopped cooperating with them.
Jake Machan, 26, was charged in 4th District Court with one count each of rape, object rape and aggravated kidnapping, all first-degree felonies punishable by up to life in prison. The charges were dismissed Tuesday at the request of prosecutors.
"For reasons unknown to us, we just weren't getting cooperation," Deputy Utah County Attorney Chad Grunander told The Salt Lake Tribune on Wednesday.
Grunander said that following a May preliminary hearing, the 30-year-old woman quit responding to letters and phone messages. She failed to show up at a Dec. 2 hearing arranged by a victim coordinator. And she also failed to respond to a subpoena summoning her to the Tuesday hearing where charges were dismissed.
"It's difficult; it's very frustrating," said Grunander, who added that he was not going to criticize the alleged victim.
"Each person reacts differently in cases like this," he said. "Some alleged victims are invested in the case from the outset and remain that way. Others taper off. In other cases, they are not interested at first and are invested later."
He added that studies show that most rape victims never call police. "It goes without saying that those who do report get cold feet," he said.
Defense attorney Ron Yengich said he believes the woman lied during the preliminary hearing about being raped.
"My position, that it was consensual sexual relations, was consistent with what other people who had been around them had seen, and also with text messages she had left on my client's phone," Yengich said Wednesday.
He said he believes the woman has been "ducking" prosecutors because they were trying to verify information provided by defense investigators that showed she was being untruthful.
A partially clothed Machan was arrested in the company of the naked woman on the night of Feb. 3.
The woman testified she had known Machan for about a month, and considered him a mere acquaintance, when he picked her up at her grandparents' Salt Lake County home at about 9:30 p.m. to go buy cigarettes.
After stopping at a convenience store, the woman testified, she asked to go home because she suddenly felt tired and had an early appointment the next day. She said she had taken a large swig of vodka from a bottle that was in Machan's truck, but attributed her tiredness to a Tylenol cold pill she had taken earlier.
Machan promised to take her home as soon as he ran an errand, she said.
The woman said she must have passed out because the next thing she knew she was naked in the truck and Machan was having sex with her. She said she began crying, tried to push him off and asked him to stop. But she said he continued raping her.
Afterward, she said she called 911 by pretending she had gotten a call from her sister. She said she told Machan, "If I don't answer the call, they'll call police to look for me."
Then, by answering "yes" and "no" to questions posed by a dispatcher, officers from Saratoga Springs Police Department and a Utah County sheriff's deputy located the pickup on a dirt road sometime after 12:30 a.m.
A Utah County sheriff's detective testified Machan told him that he and the woman had arranged to go four-wheeling that night. Machan said the woman fell asleep on the way south to Utah County but at one point awoke and asked if she could take all her clothes off.
Machan said that because the woman was his "girlfriend" he said, "Sure." The woman undressed and again fell asleep, Machan claimed.
A detective said a bottle of vodka was found inside the truck, but it was still sealed.