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SALT LAKE CITY — A man who served time in federal prison after being convicted of child human trafficking is facing new allegations of detaining and inappropriately touching a woman walking her dog, and then trying to kick her out of her own apartment.
Saquan Marcell Smith, 30, of Salt Lake City, was charged Wednesday in 3rd District Court with forcible sexual abuse, burglary, and robbery, second-degree felonies; and aggravated kidnapping in the course of committing unlawful detention, a third-degree felony.
On Monday, a woman was walking her dog in Salt Lake City when Smith — a man she had never met — approached her asking for a cigarette. The woman gave him a cigarette but then he started following her back to her apartment, according to charging documents.
Smith followed the woman into her parking garage and "took her keys and fob from her hand," then followed her into an elevator and "forced himself" on her, the charges state.
When they both got off of the elevator, police say Smith used the woman's keys to go into her apartment without her.
Salt Lake police later found video recorded on a doorbell camera that showed Smith "trying to figure out how to unlock the door" and also holding the woman in the hallway, the charges say. She is seen crying and trying to get away.
The woman tells Smith to leave her apartment. But in the video, "Smith is seen pulling on (the woman's) arm, forcibly removing her from her own apartment," according to the charges.
When he was arrested, Smith claimed he knew the woman and that he used her phone "to call his bank so that he could wire her $30,000 of his $90,000 savings but she got upset so he canceled the transfer," the charges state. But police say an officer checked the woman's phone and found the only calls made were to police dispatch and dialing her boyfriend 21 times.
"Even after the victim calls 911, (Smith) followed her around the apartment complex while she waited for police to arrive. The victim stated that she does not know and has never met the defendant before," the court documents say.
Smith has a "lengthy" criminal history, according to prosecutors, including a federal conviction for child sex trafficking. He was sentenced in 2016 to three years in federal prison. Police say Smith, who is supposed to update his information regularly on the Utah Sex Offender and Kidnap Registry, has been noncompliant for two years.
