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PROVO — A man found guilty of sexually abusing and raping a 13-year-old girl he met while coaching soccer has been sentenced to a minimum of 50 years in prison.
In November, Charles Tracy Camara was found guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, three counts of rape of a child, and five counts of sodomy on a child — all first-degree felonies.
On Wednesday, 4th District Judge Thomas Low imposed sentences for each of the crimes and said they will run concurrently. The individual sentences include two sentences of 50 years to life, eight of 25 years to life, and two of 15 years to life. At a minimum, Camara will spend another 45½ years behind bars.
Camara was a volunteer coach for an unofficial soccer team and worked in the lunchroom at Walden School of Liberal Arts for a short time. He met the victim while at the school and later became familiar with her and her family.
Camara stopped working with the school in 2015, and the crimes occurred between July 2015 and July 2016. The victim testified that the abuse began slowly and later escalated.
The victim, who is now 19, spoke at Wednesday's hearing saying Camara's actions have impacted her relationships, including her family relationships, and the abuse has made it harder for her to attend school or keep a job. She said continual court hearings have made it difficult for her to move forward with her life and she has not been able to move on and work on healing.
She had asked for Camara's sentences to run consecutively, meaning he would stay in prison for the rest of his life.
"Tracy robbed me of my childhood, and his emotional manipulation has left deep scars that I will deal with for my entire life. He took the normalcy that could have been mine at just age 12, and I will never, ever get normalcy in my life, ever again," she said.
Low said the facts of this case, one that has occupied more resources than any other he has right now, are "drop-dead serious to everyone" and that the court and lawyers have not taken them lightly. While he did not grant the victim's request for consecutive sentences, he praised her in court and said that she is full of promise.
"You are evidence of human resilience, and you're a wonderful model of that. You are most certainly wounded, but you are not defeated. I expect to hear great things about you or from you in the future, I expect you to make as positive an impact on the world as Mr. Tracy has made a negative impact on you," he said.
Camara's wife and a family friend also spoke on Camara's behalf at the sentencing. They said that Camara's friends and family do not believe that he is guilty, and cited issues they saw with the court process claiming that the trial was not fair.
"Tracy has so much support and so many people who believe in him and have had the honor to know him. He is an exceptional person. It breaks my heart that, this experience that we have gone through. It has been devastating to our family," Camara's wife said. "It has been challenging and so hard for all of our friends, and yet, we are all still united in our belief in him and our belief ... that he could never do this. This is not his character. This is not something that he would do."
Low said that this family support is admirable and enviable, but that to him it shows that Camara has simply been able to lead a double life.
Camara's attorneys plan to appeal the case and said they are hoping to be able to get access to data on the victim's phone which could invalidate some of the information presented at the trial.
