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SALT LAKE CITY — A man was arrested Wednesday after witnesses reported seeing him hitting a child with rope in the front yard, police said.
Around noon on Wednesday, the Salt Lake City Police Department received notification of a man hitting a 5-year-old child with a rope, Det. Veronica Montoya said. Officers arrived at the residence in the area of 300 East and 300 South within a couple of minutes, finding Jason Newton, 39, holding a piece of nylon rope.
The child had red marks consistent with rope burns on the back of his arms and neck, according to a probable cause statement.
The boy’s mother told police the boy followed her boyfriend, Newton, outside while he took out the garbage. Police had no details about what provoked the alleged abuse.
A probable cause statement from the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office said Newton claimed he was "playing with him, helping him improve his reflexes."
Police arrested Newton for investigation of child abuse, being a sex offender in the presence of a child, and criminal trespass. Montoya said the boy’s mother was unaware of Newton’s history of sex abuse. He had not obtained written consent from her to be with her son, either.
“The mother had no idea that he was one, a registered sex offender and two, that he had hit the boy before,” Montoya said.
Newton pled guilty to aggravated assault in a case that involved domestic violence in 1997. In 2000, Newton was convicted on two counts of sex abuse of a child, a first-degree felony.
