Defense seeks dismissal of decades-old Fruit Heights sex abuse case

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Defense attorneys seek dismissal of sex abuse charges against Alan Brower Bassett, stemming from the 1980s.
The defense claims a 1989 nonprosecution agreement was violated by filing charges now.
Prosecutors argue Bassett breached agreement terms, and a dismissal request is extraordinary.

FARMINGTON — Defense attorneys for a 76-year-old Payson man accused of sexually abusing multiple children in a Fruit Heights neighborhood in the 1980s argue that the case should be dismissed because of due process violations.

At a hearing Friday in Farmington's 2nd District Court, more than 30 people seated in the gallery sported light blue ribbon stickers on their shirts in support of the children who Alan Brower Bassett is accused of abusing.

Bassett was charged in June 2024 with nine counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a second-degree felony. Several alleged victims were interviewed, but only the testimony from five of them could be used to charge Bassett due to statutory limitations, court documents state.

The abuse is alleged to have taken place between the time Bassett moved his family into a new Fruit Heights neighborhood in 1977 until he moved out of the neighborhood in 1989, court records state. The allegations detail the man sexually assaulting the friends of his children when they came over for sleepovers, visits or hikes when they were between 5 and 10 years old.

In August 2024, the defense argued Bassett's charges should be dismissed due to a 35-year-old "nonprosecution agreement" with the Davis County Attorney's Office, which said the state would not file charges for Bassett's alleged "sexual activities" if he would complete a sexual abuse treatment program, meet with each alleged victim and their parents and disclose all of his conduct to them, and pay for any alleged victim's therapy expenses, among other stipulations.

No signed version of the agreement has been found by either party; however, a separate letter referring to the agreement being signed in May 1989 was submitted as evidence of a contract.

Testimonies of multiple women at a March hearing indicate Bassett did not meet with every victim, significantly minimized his conduct to the families he did meet with, and did not pay for any therapy.

Defense attorneys Jonathan Nish and Mary Corporon argued the state violated the "nonprosecution agreement" when it filed charges against Bassett, necessitating the case's dismissal.

Corporon said it's a due process violation to wait 35 years to file charges when the state had all of the evidence "on a silver platter" back in 1989. Now, everyone involved with the negotiation has either died or has faded memory of it, and the documents are no longer available, she said.

The state relieved Bassett of all criminal responsibility back in 1989 through that agreement, Nish argued, and it's unethical to now go back on that agreement decades later.

"All the roads in this case inevitably lead back to a violation of due process. We want the state to hold to its word," he said, adding that it could set a bad precedent if court agreements do not have finality, even to the court.

The defense also brought up the testimonies of former deputy Davis County attorney Brian Namba and Bassett's lawyer in 1989, Robert Faust, who both said there was a written agreement signed. Corporon argued the state also acted as if there was an agreement, as evidenced by its failure to prosecute Bassett until everyone involved had long since forgotten it.

However, prosecutor Jesse Bushnell told the court that the fact that Bassett was not prosecuted until 2024 "shouldn't have happened in the first place." And while Namba and Faust talked about negotiating an agreement, they weren't definitive in remembering an actual finalized agreement, Bushnell said.

Even if the agreement was finalized, "it's very apparent — overwhelmingly so, from the states' perspective — that (Bassett) didn't perform even close to substantial performance (of the agreement's requirements), and materially breached every one of those provisions of that document."

"He wants absolution for these crimes, but he wasn't truthful," Bushnell said, citing the women's testimonies that Bassett didn't even contact some of the victims.

Bassett himself testified in March that he "knew there were more (victims). I just couldn't remember who they were."

Bassett's former neighbor Patrice Pederson said there is an online support network with about 50 women accusing Bassett of abuse. Kristy Sauter, who lived near the Bassett house in the 1980s, said Bassett "terrorized our neighborhood."

Bassett's attorneys' request for a dismissal when there's criminal information against him is an "extraordinary request" and is asking the court to "take huge leaps in his favor on disputed facts and evidence," Bushnell argued.

Judge Jennifer Valencia presides over an evidentiary hearing on March 7 in Farmington's 2nd District Court. (Photo: Collin Leonard, KSL.com)

Nish argued Bassett took responsibility by self-reporting in the 1980s, enrolling himself in a sexual abuse treatment program and turning his life around, as no allegations of criminal conduct have occurred since.

"That's behavior we want the public to be encouraged by: self-reporting and self-correcting," Nish said. It would not be wise to allow a court precedent where that behavior can be turned against a defendant later, he said.

Bushnell said it was highly detrimental for the defense to characterize the 35 years Bassett has been living free in the community as a positive when the people he allegedly abused are still hurting from that abuse, and no justice has been served.

"That's a huge benefit to him that doesn't fit into due process. He entered treatment and paid for that; that's what it cost him to get the benefit of this agreement, nothing more than that," Bushnell said. "Being out in the community for 35 years isn't a detriment to him."

Second District Judge Jennifer L. Valencia said she would review all of the evidence, testimony and documents, and then submit a written ruling within 60 days on whether to grant the motion for dismissal.

Both the defense and prosecution made it clear that if the decision did not go their way, they would be submitting an appeal, leaving the future of the case uncertain for the alleged victims and their supporters.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.