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CEDAR CITY — A Cedar City man who was about to be paroled from the Utah State Prison where he is serving time for burning his mother's house down is now saying he also burned down another woman's house in 2019, according to court documents.
Furthermore, prosecutors say Christopher Lee Lescoe, 38, also drugged that woman and raped her in the weeks leading up to the fire in addition to sexually abusing a girl.
Lescoe was charged Wednesday in 5th District Court with four counts of sodomy on a child, three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child and two counts of rape, all first-degree felonies.
Lescoe is currently incarcerated in the Utah State Prison for burning down his mother's house in Nibley, Cache County, in 2019. He was convicted of aggravated arson and sentenced to a term of one to 15 years in prison.
He went to stay with his mother in Nibley in 2019 after the woman's house in Cedar City burned down.
"At the time of the house fire, it was investigated as arson with Lescoe as the suspect. However, there was not enough evidence at that time to charge him with that crime," according to charging documents filed Wednesday.
Lescoe was originally scheduled to be released from prison on parole on July 3. However, the new charges allege that he is now admitting to his crimes in Cedar City in 2019 because "he wants to make things right" with his victims.
"Lescoe stated that he is coming forward with this now so that (the victims) can get the mental health counseling that he was never able to get after his own abuse. Lescoe stated that his conscience had been bothering him a great deal and he knew that he had to tell the police what he had done," the charging documents state. "He also stated that he knows he will probably spend the rest of his life in prison for his actions, but he accepts that, if it happens, because he has to make things right."
