5YO Crawls Under Stall, Escapes Sexual Assault In Utah Locker Room

[Sugar Cookie]

Officers with the Lehi City Police Department arrested a man after he allegedly sexually assaulted a 5-year-old child in the locker room of a recreation center in Lehi, Utah.

Jonathan Jareth Soberanis, 26, was booked into by the Utah County Sheriff's Office on June 2 after detectives with the special victims unit at Lehi City PD began their investigation into the case. Soberanis has a long history of exposing himself to children in public.

According to a police document, officers took the report of the 5-year-old child being sexually assaulted by an unknown man while he was unaccompanied in the rec center's locker room on June 1.

Police said the child told them Soberanis came into the bathroom stall where the child was. Soberanis proceeded to show the child his genitalia before sexually assaulting him, not allowing the boy to leave the stall, police said.

The child told police he had to crawl under the bathroom stall in order to escape the assault, he then called out to his mom for help. The boy's mother immediately alerted staff and they reached out to the police about the reported incident.

The following day, Lehi City PD started the investigation using surveillance footage of the described man entering the locker room.

Police said in their report the man is seen entering the locker room around the same time the child was there and exiting, using a different door, around the same time the child ran out.

This was when police identified him as Soberanis, who has a history of being arrested for lewdness, sexual abuse of a child, and lewdness involving a child.

It was later learned Soberanis had been banned from the center's property after an incident in 2015.

Police: 5-year-old crawls under stall, escapes sexual assault in Utah locker room

LEHI, Utah (KUTV) — Officers with the Lehi City Police Department arrested a man after he allegedly sexually assaulted a 5-year-old child in the locker room of a recreation center in Lehi, Utah. Jonathan Jareth Soberanis, 26, was booked into by the Utah County Sheriff's Office on June 2 after...

kutv.com

Detectives identified Soberanis and later found he had been previously been arrested for lewdness, sexual abuse of a child and lewdness involving a child. He was also banned from the same recreation center in 2015 for performing sexual acts in the shower.

While being interviewed by police, Soberanis admitted to being at the Lehi Legacy Center to work out, but officials say video never showed him "accessing any workout equipment." When asked what he was doing in the locker room and why he was seen running from the bathroom, Soberanis said he has a "disability that prevents him from recollecting his actions."

As detectives attempted to take Soberanis into custody, he resisted by kicking and throwing himself around. Police say he also threw a glass end table at officers before he was able to be pinned down.

Soberanis was taken to the Utah County Jail and booked on the following charges:

• CHARGE 1: "Lewdness Involving a Child" - for exposing himself to the 5 year-old child
• CHARGE 2: "Criminal Trepass w/ Intent to Commit a Crime" - for entering the recreation center and committing the sexual assault in a location where he had previously been trespassed for sexual acts in 2015.
• CHARGE 3: "Voyeurism Against a Child" - for entering the stall where the child was actively using the restroom and had a reasonable expectation of privacy. CHARGE 4: "Sexual Abuse of a Child" - for exposing himself to the child and then taking indecent liberties against the child.
• CHARGE 5: "Resisting Arrest" - for not obeying and physically resisting officers when officers attempted to take him into custody.
• CHARGE 6: "Assault Against a Police Officer" - for propelling the end table towards the officers and for the kicking of officers Jonathan did when officers attempted to take him into custody.

5-year-old escapes under bathroom stall during assault in Lehi rec center

A Lehi man was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly sexually assaulted a 5-year-old boy inside the bathroom of a recreation center. Police say the boy crawled under a bathroom stall to escape from the man.

www.fox13now.com

 

[Brillig]

Not very smart for a molester to have extremely distinctive and unusual two tone hair.

 

[JackBurton]

Why was someone with a list of charges like that not in a cage?

Why was a 5 year old permitted to go to a public bathroom alone?

 

[Sejanus]

He looks like an excellent candidate for a Forged in Fire kill test dummy...

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Remember Squawker and her ilk think this Turd needs a hug not a jail cell.

 

[RisottoGroupon]

Remember Squawker and her ilk think this Turd needs a hug not a jail cell.

You sure talk a lot for someone who really doesn’t have much to say.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

@RisottoGroupon

Stupid I am typing not talking.

 

[RisottoGroupon]

@RisottoGroupon

Stupid I am typing not talking.

Wow, sick burn dog, how will I ever recover?! You’re typing but are you really saying anything? No, no I don’t think so.
[automerge]1622939247[/automerge]
Look, I’m @Sugar Cookie ”racism, racism, dead kids, racism.” Get a life away from your desktop, Boomer.

 

[Kitsune Faye]

Remember Squawker and her ilk think this Turd needs a hug not a jail cell.

He needs a bullet, Suga. He need a bullet, or a 20-gauge shotgun shell.

 

[Turd Fergusen]

He shouldn't have been out in the first place.

 

[Freyja]

I am surprised that Mom didn't snatch that road kill skunk off his head.

 

[BBBLUE77]

Soberanis, huh? I hope his anus isn't sober whilst he's locked up in the pokey.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Aug 14, 2024

In the last decade, Jonathan Soberanis has been charged in five separate cases with committing crimes of a sexual nature involving children. In four, he was found not competent to stand trial, causing a judge to dismiss the case without prejudice.

A fifth case, now proceeding in federal court, may change that pattern.

Federal investigators claim Soberanis used a New Zealand storage platform with end-to-end encryption to download and distribute child pornography. They suggest he may be more competent than past evaluators have documented.

And unlike his other cases, Soberanis has now been evaluated by a federal expert outside of Utah, which gives one mother reason to hope the outcome this time will be different.

Stefanie Davis says her son called her in January 2022 saying a man was looking through their windows trying to get in. After reviewing doorbell security footage and talking to other neighbors, police arrested Soberanis, who lived just a few doors down, on suspicion of voyeurism. That is when Davis learned about Soberanis and his extensive history.

Jonathan Soberanis has faced numerous allegations of sexual misconduct involving children. His criminal record includes multiple charges ranging from lewdness to aggravated sexual abuse of a child,

• June 26, 2015: Soberanis was accused of masturbating at the Lehi Legacy Center and was subsequently banned from the facility. He later pleaded no contest to lewdness. It is unclear if this case involved children. The details of this case remain sealed.
• April 21, 2018: Soberanis was accused of exposing himself to a child at the Shops at South Town Mall. The mother of the child took a photo of him, which led to Soberanis knocking the phone out of her hand and pushing her to the ground before fleeing, according to police reports. He was charged with lewdness involving a child, assault, and a violent offense committed in the presence of a child. He was found not competent to stand trial, and the charges were dismissed without prejudice on Augt 13, 2019.
• Dec. 16, 2018: Soberanis was accused of looking under a dressing room stall at the West Valley Fitness Center, where he reportedly saw an 8-year-old boy. When the boy’s father confronted him, Soberanis allegedly pushed the father to the ground and kicked him in the chest, according to the police report. Body camera footage showed Soberanis admitting to masturbating while looking at the boy. On June 11, 2021, Soberanis was found not competent, and his charges of lewdness and assault were dismissed without prejudice.
• June 1, 2021: Soberanis was accused of attacking a 5-year-old boy at the Lehi Legacy Center. He faced charges of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, lewdness involving a child, assault by a prisoner, and two counts of assault against a peace officer. Body camera footage showed Soberanis flipping a table when officers tried to arrest him at his home the next day. He was found not competent, and the charges were dismissed without prejudice on August 5, 2021.
• Jan. 11, 2022: Soberanis was accused of looking into neighbors’ windows, including a 7-year-old boy’s home. He was arrested for voyeurism. A judge deemed him not competent but ordered restorative treatment. On March 1, 2023, following this treatment, he was again found not competent for trial, and his charges were dismissed without prejudice.
• March 22, 2022: Soberanis was arrested on 21 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony involving child pornography. Digital evidence suggested he had obtained these images between August 2020 and March 2022. This case became a federal case and is currently progressing through the court system. His competency hearing is scheduled for November.

Past court evaluators appointed to determine Soberanis’s competency on state charges referenced several potential diagnoses, including autism, depressive disorder, and ADHD, according to court documents.

Soberanis is currently in federal custody and being held without bail. Court documents show a psychiatric examination was ordered for Soberanis on Jan. 5. Soberanis has an evidentiary hearing in federal court this week. His competency hearing is scheduled for November.

Davis is not giving up hope of a different outcome.

“He is competent, he has to be,” Davis said.

Multiple arrests involving children, never convicted: Will Jonathan Soberanis have his first trial?

Despite multiple arrests over the years, Jonathan Soberanis has never been convicted or even gone to trial for his alleged crimes against children. The KSL Investigators dive into why that may change.

ksltv.com

 

[Busy Bee]

This guy should not be released! He has proven beyond doubt that he will molest a child or worse!! When my Grandson was that age and he was with me I took him into the lady’s room with me. This guy is a predator, his “rights” are not nearly as important as the rights of children getting their innocence stolen!

 

[Alxprkrkrls]

Not competent so charges dismissed?? What the actual fuck?

 

[the cat did it]

So he's not competent to stand trial but he was competent enough to let out over and over again on the unsuspecting public and continue his reign of abuse and terror on CHILDREN?!?! I mean really???!!!!!!!! The only thing I can say about that is that they were all dismissed w/out prejudice, be nice if the found him competent and reinstated ALL the charges.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

He should at least be committed to a secure mental health facility where he has no access to internet services.

Let us hope the Feds build a solid case and don;t allow him to take a plea deal.

 

[Josh P]

This dude knows how to work the system and play the evaluators. Eventually that luck will run out.

 

[Turd Fergusen]

If one can encrypt CP, then they should be competent for trial.

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

If one can encrypt CP, then they should be competent for trial.

What is CP?
Also, intelligence and mental illness are different things.

 

[Alxprkrkrls]

What is CP?
Also, intelligence and mental illness are different things.

I think they’re referencing child pornography, and I agree with the sentiment, if a person has the wherewithal to figure out complicated encryption then they are likely competent enough to understand the charges against them and why it was wrong in the first place

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

I think they’re referencing child pornography, and I agree with the sentiment, if a person has the wherewithal to figure out complicated encryption then they are likely competent enough to understand the charges against them and why it was wrong in the first place

I don't think that's how mental illness works.
It's...how do I put this...mental illness is a different way of thinking that isn't recognizable to people that have don't have that brain structure.

Mentally ill people know how to wipe their ass, but that doesn't make them sane.

Intelligence, methodology, is profoundly different from mental illness.

But hey, you made the local bigot hippity-hoppity-happy

 

[keemalove]

throw away the key.

 

[Alxprkrkrls]

I don't think that's how mental illness works.
It's...how do I put this...mental illness is a different way of thinking that isn't recognizable to people that have don't have that brain structure.

Mentally ill people know how to wipe their ass, but that doesn't make them sane.

Intelligence, methodology, is profoundly different from mental illness.

But hey, you made the local bigot hippity-hoppity-happy

But I think the question of being competent (or not guilty by reason of insanity) is knowing/understanding that what you are doing is wrong. If you’re taking all these steps to hide what you are doing then there has to be a level of understanding right? He also fled the scene in the locker room, which also leads me to believe he’s aware that his actions are wrong. This is just my opinion though I could be totally off base

 

[Sugar Cookie]

March 15, 2025​

Despite being accused of numerous sexual crimes against children over a decade, 30-year-old Jonathan Jareth Soberanis has been found not competent to proceed in all but one state case, and charges against him have been dismissed.

Once he is released, police say he keeps committing similar crimes and a pattern is repeated of him being charged, found incompetent, then released.

That may change. Soberanis appeared in federal court for competency hearings Thursday and Friday on charges of distribution and transportation of child sexual abuse material, as a string of experts testified as to whether he is competent to stand trial.

Various medical evaluators over the time frame in question have made formal and informal diagnoses, including neurodevelopment disorder, fetal alcohol spectrum syndrome, dissociative identity disorder, autism, and serious childhood trauma.

Thursday appeared to be the first time forensic psychologists came to the conclusion Soberanis was competent, a claim hotly debated by an evaluator hired by the defense.

Friday, clinical and forensic psychologist, Dr. Jolie Brams, hired by the defense to evaluate Soberanis, said she had "grave concerns" about the competency of the man. He wore his dark hair in a top bun in the morning, down in a curly ponytail after lunch, dressed in grey and white stripes from Davis County Jail.

Brams said Soberanis was "basically unable to understand the complexities of the court system," had an "infantile nature," and "understood he was in trouble" only in a "very simplistic" way.

She said past sexual and physical abuse as a child encouraged the development of dissociative identity disorder. "His coping is to rely on these shattered parts of his identity," she said, which leaves frequent and significant gaps in short-term and working memory. "Life is really a struggle for him."


But the psychologists from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, commissioned independently by the court to assess the question, found he was competent, given he be provided a number of accommodations for his mental disabilities, like frequent breaks and repetitious explanations.

When asked if the accommodations would be sufficient to remedy the competency issue, Brams was adamant: "No, absolutely not."


The charges themselves allege he used multiple social media profiles and apps, the dark web, and encrypted cloud storage to host his illicit photos and videos, which the Federal Bureau of Prisons psychologists say demonstrates a moderate level of executive functioning.

On Friday, Dr. Jessica Micono with the bureau testified she believed Brams and others had been inadvertently elevating the standards set by Dusky, and allowed emotions to inform the reports. She stood behind the report of her junior, Dr. Rebecca Johnson, though Brams testified she was concerned about "cherry picking" from an "inexperienced evaluator."

Hollan, who is prosecuting the federal case, sees the Soberanis situation as indicative of a problem statewide. In court documents he argues that nationally, 20% of defendants are found not competent, compared to 70% for Utah evaluators. "This is not a failure of the law, but of evaluators who allow bias toward treatment affect their determination of competency," he wrote.

The defense and prosecutor will submit briefs to the court in the coming month, before orally arguing their positions on competency. U.S. District Judge David Barlow will then rule on the competency issue at hand, which if favorable to the prosecution, may allow past charges to be reopened.

In 2015, Soberanis was permanently banned from a Utah County recreation center, exposing himself sexually to others in the locker room, court documents show. He pleaded no contest to one count of lewdness in June 2014, and received 11 months of probation.


He had "contact" with law enforcement in October 2015, September 2016, and December 2016, prosecutors wrote in a 2023 court filing.

In May 2018, witnesses say he exposed himself to a child at the South Towne Mall in Sandy. The child's mother took pictures of Soberanis, before he "knocked the phone out of her hand and pushed her down," according to the initial police booking affidavit. The photos were released to local media, and multiple tipsters reached out to identify Soberanis, the affidavit says.

He was charged with a number of misdemeanors for the alleged incident, was found not competent in June 2019, released from Salt Lake County Jail, and charges were dismissed.

In December 2018, Soberanis crawled under a dressing room stall at the same Utah County recreation center he was previously banned from, to watch an 8-year-old boy undress, before exposing himself to the child, charging documents allege. After being found not competent in June 2019, those charges and charges from another case were dismissed.

In May 2021, the man broke into a house and lied to police about his identity, according to charges. The next month he was charged with touching a 5-year-old boy at the same recreation center he was banned from in 2015, court documents say, exposing himself to the child who crawled under the stall door to escape. After being confronted, he allegedly assaulted two officers.



The charges in those case were dismissed in July and August 2021, after he was found not competent.

He was put in the custody of the Department of Services for People with Disabilities in August 2021, and was supposed to be on 24-hour watch.

In January 2022, however, Soberanis was charged with multiple voyeurism misdemeanors after police say he was peeking into neighbors' bedrooms wearing a robe, mask and beanie, the police booking affidavit says. Following those charges, "law enforcement discovered approximately 30 gigabytes of (child sexual abuse material), comprised of thousands of images and videos," on Soberanis' devices, court documents state.

He was found not competent in November 2022 and the charges were dismissed in March 2023. Soberanis has been in federal custody in the Davis County Jail since then.

Experts clash in competency hearing of 30-year-old with history of dismissed sex charges

A string of cases involving sexual crimes against children have been dismissed against Jonathan Soberanis due to competency issues. Some experts now testify in federal court he is able to stand trial.

www.ksl.com