Font ResizeA former Churchill Junior High substitute teacher has pleaded guilty in connection with a sexual encounter last year with a 13-year-old female student.
Christopher Benjamin Page, 20, of Salt Lake City, was charged with one count of forcible sexual abuse, a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison.
Page pleaded guilty on Tuesday in 3rd District Court to two class A misdemeanor counts of sexual battery.
The crimes are each punishable by up to a year in jail. But as part of the plea deal prosecutors will recommend treatment rather than jail time.
Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Alicia Cook explained Wednesday that a psycho-sexual exam revealed Page has no violent or aberrant sexual tendencies and he is considered a low risk to re-offend.
"He is kind of immature, with limited sexual experience," Cook said. "There is nothing that indicated he is a risk."
Cook said the evaluator recommended Page receive general psycho-theraputic treatment.
Cook also said the victim and her parents supported the plea deal as they did not want Page to spend time behind bars or to be placed on Utah's Sex Offender Registry.
"They say he is a good person who made a bad decision," Cook said of the girl's parents feelings toward Page.
Cook added that the limited nature of the touching was a factor in the lenient plea deal.
On Nov. 3, a Sandy police officer found Page and the girl both shirtless
Furthermore, Cook said, investigation showed that Page knew the girl and her family before the crime occurred and that their relationship was not that of a teacher and student, which was the basis of the original felony charge.
Page had been a substitute teacher in the girl's class about a month before the encounter, according to police. The two later exchanged text messages, set a time to meet and the girl sneaked out of her house, police said.
Granite School District officials have said they fired Page as soon as they learned of his arrest.
Page started as a substitute teacher on Oct. 1, 2008, and had taught classes three times, school officials said. For the previous three years, he had worked sweeping floors at Granite Schools.
Christopher Benjamin Page is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 28 by 3rd District Judge Stephen Roth.
