Gov. Gary Herbert’s half brother — who is serving prison time for engaging in sexually explicit online chats with a police officer posing as a 13-year-old girl — will spend even more time behind bars for sexually abusing a girl more than 15 years ago.
Paul Gordon Peters, 48, pleaded no contest Tuesday to three counts of attempted sexual abuse of a child, a third-degree felony, in 4th District Court. Original charges in the case — three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, six counts of sodomy on a child, and two counts of rape, all first-degree felonies — were reduced or dismissed as part of a plea agreement.
He was sentenced Tuesday to zero to five years in prison on each count, to run concurrent with each other and consecutive to the sentence he is currently serving for enticement. In the enticement case, Peters is in the midst of serving a sentence of up to five years at the Utah State Prison.
Court papers revealed more evidence supporting the newest case against Peters, filed in April of last year. A judicial ruling would have granted the state partial use of evidence gathered during the enticement case to help corroborate the victim’s story had the case gone to trial.
The victim, who is now an adult, was 7 to 10 years old while Peters was dating her mother from about 1999 to 2002, according to court papers.
During that time, the abuse mostly took place at the victim’s home in Utah County, court documents state.
Peters often stayed the night at the victim’s home, especially while the victim’s mother was working late, documents say. On one occasion, Peters drove the alleged victim up a canyon, where he sexually abused her, charges state.
In 2010, Peters contacted the victim via Facebook and misspelled her name, documents say.
Then, in the online chats with the undercover officer in 2016, Peters’ screen name was “Pauly” followed by a heart icon and the victim’s misspelled name.
During the course of the conversation that Peters believed he was having with the 13-year-old, he wrote that he had once dated a woman whose daughter was “about your age and she liked me more then[sic] her mom we went out a lot.”
In multiple conversations, Peters suggested that the fictitious 13-year-old “hook [him] up” with her mother so they could see each other “all the time” without raising suspicion.
After charges were filed in the enticement case in 2016, the governor’s office put out a statement that said: “Regardless of who is being accused, the governor believes these are horrific allegations.” According to the news release, Peters and Herbert were raised in different homes.
Follow @mnoblenews