A 35-year-old Utah man was charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting multiple children under his mother’s care at her Salt Lake City home day care when he was still a teenager.
Theodore J. Heaps reportedly admitted to police that he’d assaulted multiple children between 1998 and 2000, when he was between 15 and 17 years old, according to court documents filed in Third District Court.
Salt Lake City police began investigating the case this year when one of the female victims came to police to report she’d be raped by Heaps at day care when she was 12. Later, a male victim told police he’d been assaulted by Heaps at the day care when he was 6 and 7 years old.
Heaps reportedly admitted to assaulting the 12-year-old, but said he couldn’t recall the name of a boy he’d raped when the child was around 6 years old, according to court documents. Heaps reportedly told police he’d molested another boy “numerous times” over a two-year period, and that the boy was between 6 and 8 years old.
Charging documents identify three alleged victims, and Salt Lake City police spokesman Detective Robert Ungricht said officers aren’t looking for more. However, if there are additional victims, they can call police at 801-799-3000.
Ungricht didn’t release where the day care was in Salt Lake City. He said he didn’t know if Heaps' mother knew about the alleged abuse or if she could be charged in the case.
Heaps was arrested Wednesday night and booked into Salt Lake County jail. His bail was set at $500,000, according to court documents. He has been charged with two counts rape of a child and three counts of sodomy on a child, all first-degree felonies.
Heaps was convicted of kidnapping, a second degree felony, in 2008, and child abuse and neglect, a third-degree felony, in 2004. He was released from Utah Department of Corrections custody for the kidnapping charge in February 2009.
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