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LOGAN — A criminal charge has been dismissed against a man accused of secretly filming sexual relations with his former girlfriend and showing at least one other person.
Griffin Crosby Ford, 23, was charged a year ago in 1st District Court with voyeurism by electronic equipment, a class A misdemeanor.
In 2015, a Utah State University student began dating Ford. She borrowed his laptop one day to do school work and found a file with her name on it, according to court documents.
The woman told police she found videos of herself engaged in sex acts with Ford.
"(The woman) stated that it appeared that the video was possibly recorded using a cellphone which Ford was holding out of her sight," a search warrant affidavit states.
Several videos were found, including a video of at least one other woman, according to the affidavit.
The woman ended her relationship with Ford and told him to erase the videos. But a few months later, she was told that others may have been shown the video.
Last April, the woman recorded a phone conversation with Ford under police guidance in which she recorded him allegedly confessing to the videotape, the warrant states.
In August, a preliminary hearing was held and Ford was ordered to stand trial. A jury trial was scheduled to begin earlier this year. But the Cache County Attorney's Office filed a motion to dismiss the charge "based on lack of evidence," according to the motion.
In the days leading up to the trial, prosecutor Jacob Gordon said Ford's attorneys revealed there were additional videos involving the woman.
Gordon said the videos would have likely been used to try and undermine the woman's credibility. Fearing it would have been difficult to prove their case to a jury reaching that high standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt," prosecutors chose to dismiss the case rather than subject the woman to a painful trial.
Prosecutors asked that the case be dismissed without prejudice. But 1st District Judge Thomas Willmore said considering the timing of the motion, the case should be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can never be refiled and the record can be expunged. Gordon did not object.
Gordon said that the woman has maintained since charges were filed last May that she had no knowledge she was being recorded.
