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The Utah Supreme Court has overturned a judge's order requiring a sex offender to pay his victim for the wages she lost as a result of his abuse in 2003.

Scott C. Wadsworth, who sexually exploited a teenage girl, had been ordered by a judge to reimburse the victim almost $13,000 in wages she lost when depression caused by the offense led to problems at work and a reduction in her hours.

In a 5-0 ruling handed down Tuesday, the court said the version of the state's Crime Victims Restitution Act in effect at the time Wadsworth was ordered to reimburse the teen made lost income available only in cases in which the offense led to bodily injury.

(The act was amended in 2016, and restitution for lost income resulting from an offense is no longer restricted to cases involving bodily injury. The Supreme Court's opinion was governed by the previous version of the act.)

According to court documents, Wadsworth met his victim, then 14, in an online chat room in July 2003 and the two chatted online and talked on the phone. The then-34-year-old man sent the girl pornographic images and once went to her home, where they engaged in a sex act, the documents say.

Wadsworth was charged in late 2003 with 26 offenses involving his conduct with the teen and later pleaded guilty under a plea deal to three charges — sexual exploitation of a minor, unlawful sexual activity with a minor and enticing a minor over the internet. He fled before his scheduled April 2005 sentencing and was caught in July 2009, then sentenced in 3rd District Court six months later to 1 to 15 years in prison.

At a restitution hearing in 2010, his victim testified that the crime, as well as the reminder of what had happened after Wadsworth's arrest, caused her deep depression and difficulties on the job. Wadsworth was ordered to pay $12,934 in lost pay from 2009 and 2010 and $6,500 for counseling costs.

Wadsworth appealed the lost-income part of the restitution order and was turned down at the Utah Court of Appeals in a 3-0 ruling issued in 2015. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court reversed the appeals court.

The justices noted that the Crime Victims Restitution Act said judges should consider six categories in calculating restitution for economic loss. Until last year, the category at issue covered lost income "if the offense resulted in bodily injury to a victim."

In Wadsworth's case, prosecutors did not allege the victim had suffered bodily injury, only that the crimes led to her depression and impacted her ability to work.

The Supreme Court opinion said the "if" clause was key and "means what it says — 'income lost by the victim' may be considered only 'if the offense resulted in bodily injury.' "

Wadsworth was paroled from prison in August 2015.

Twitter: @PamelaMansonSLC