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LOGAN — A Logan man has been ordered to serve a term of six years to life in prison after Smithfield police say he filmed himself having sex with a 13-year-old girl earlier this year.
Trecen Sambrano, 19, pleaded guilty July 26 to aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, a first-degree felony. In exchange for his plea, charges of rape of a child and sodomy on a child, first-degree felonies, and assault, a class B misdemeanor, were dismissed as part of a plea deal.
On Jan. 20, Smithfield police responded to a report from the Division of Child and Family Services that Sambrano, then 18, had sent out a video of him having sex with a 13-year-old girl, according to a police booking affidavit. The girl told the Division of Child and Family Services she had unwanted sex with Sambrano while under the influence of marijuana.
Sambrano's former girlfriend said Sambrano had called her "bragging about" the incident and "trying to make her feel bad," and had shown her the video, the affidavit states.
Police also reported finding texts between Sambrano and the 13-year-old where she told him her age and he replied, "I ain't trippen."
But defense attorney Ryan Holdaway said he never saw those texts and says his client thought the victim was older. Holdaway said he thinks Utah should reevaluate some of its laws when defendants think victims are older than they actually are, especially since he believes Sambrano was not intentionally targeting underage girls.
"He made a bad choice and a bad mistake, but some of that is because he was misled, and now he's going to spend six formative years of his life in prison," Holdaway said of Sambrano.
"He believed that she was of age," Holdaway said. "But our system doesn't allow that to be a defense."
Prosecutor Zacharia Becerra called the sentence "a just resolution to this case."
