Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — A judge has dropped dozens of child pornography charges against a Montana man previously acquitted of raping a 9-year-old girl.
Randall Flatlip's attorney says the explicit images ended up in his Google account after he gave his password to at least six people and his laptop wound up in a pawn shop.
Prosecutors agreed with the 28-year-old Flatlip that the charges should be dismissed. They asked a judge to toss each of the 74 felonies he faced, court documents show.
On Tuesday, the criminal case became the third to be resolved in Flatlip's favor in the past year.
Flatlip, who moved back to Montana's Crow Indian Reservation after his release from jail in July, "was thrilled. He was sobbing" on Tuesday, said his lawyer, Loni DeLand. The attorney said he believes prosecutors had filed the child exploitation charges, all second-degree felonies, in an effort to push his client into admitting guilt and taking a plea deal in the rape case.
Last year, Flatlip was one of three men found not guilty of raping a 9-year-old girl in a home outside of Vernal on Easter Sunday 2016. Their defense attorneys argued at trial there was no DNA evidence linking them to the alleged assaults.
A different jury acquitted Flatlip of punching another Uinta County Jail inmate in the face in 2017, court records show.
The Uintah County Attorney's office did not immediately return a message seeking comment Wednesday.
