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SOUTH JORDAN — A Vineyard man accused of serving hot chocolate spiked with ketamine to unsuspecting victims — including a teenage girl — now faces five felony charges.
The 52-year-old man was charged Monday in 3rd District Court with three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony; endangerment of a child with injury, a second-degree felony; and surreptitious administering of a substance, a third-degree felony.
KSL.com is not naming the defendant in order to protect the identities of the victims.
The investigation was opened in March by South Jordan police. The man is accused of making three cups of hot chocolate for himself, a woman and the woman's young teenage daughter after dinner. He claimed he laced only two of the drinks with ketamine — which the man called a "love potion" — for him and the woman, according to court documents.
"He thought it would be fun for him and (the woman) to try together," he later told police, according to search warrant affidavit.
But police say the woman was never told that ketamine was in her drink.
Ketamine is used as an anesthetic for humans and animals. It is also commonly associated with club drugs such as GHB, and is sometimes referred to as a date rape drug along with rohypno.
The woman "started experiencing vertigo and trouble seeing" within 30 minutes of drinking the hot chocolate, according to the warrant. The man told her to take a nap.
A short time later, the man went to the room where the teen was in bed. The girl, who later told police "she was in and out of consciousness," felt the man try to inappropriately touch her, the charges state.
The girl ran to her mother's room "screaming that she needed to go to the hospital, that something was wrong" and that "she was feeling sick, her head was spinning and she could not speak well," according to the charges. The man later claimed he "may have given (the girl) the wrong cup."
When all three of them were feeling sick, the man told them "it was possibly a gas leak and just to stay out of the house," the warrant states. The woman and girl asked him to call an ambulance, but the man claimed he couldn't afford it — something prosecutors called "appalling" in the charging documents. However, he later drove them to the hospital himself.
Two days after the incident, the man texted the woman and told her he had put ketamine in her drink, the charges state. The mother called police after learning he had been in her daughter's room. When interviewed by detectives, the girl disclosed prior incidents of inappropriately being touched by the man, the charges state.
