GOP Utah Senate President Slammed After Changing Law To Help Relative Who Raped 13-Year-Old

*The following article contains discussion of sexual assault.

In March of 2022, Utah Republican state Senate President J. Stuart Adams claimed that a last-minute move—less than four hours before lawmakers were set to adjourn for the session—to pass a bill banning transgender girls from playing school sports was "good government."

He supported his arguments with vague statements about "fairness" and "safety" concerns for cisgender girls and women. At the time, Utah had 85,000 athletes in competitive sports and only 4 of them were trans.

A classic case of the GOP creating a solution looking for a problem.

After over a year of negotiating, the Utah Legislature agreed to pass a bill that would create a commission to decide if each individual trans athlete could participate in their sport. But just hours before the end of the legislative session, the GOP-controlled state Senate—under Adams' leadership—pushed through a new version completely banning transgender girls from school sports.

In August, a Utah court declared the law unconstitutional and the commission option was enacted instead.

Two years later, a problem was brought before Adams that required a solution. A problem that truly involved fairness and safety for girls.

What penalties should an 18-year-old man face when he has sex with a child 13 or younger? One would assume Adams—who pushed to protect cisgender girls from the possibility of losing in a sports competition—would push even harder to protect children from sexual assault.

The age of consent in Utah is 14.

Any child younger than 14 cannot legally consent to sex, making sex with anyone younger than 14 a crime. The laws regarding consent vary based on the age of the person having sexual contact with the younger child and the younger child's age, provided no force or coercion was used.

Put simply, if the children engaged in unforced sexual contact are 13 and 14, the penalties are less than if the children are 13 and 17. The bigger the age gap, the bigger the penalty.

If the person is a legal adult, the penalties for such a crime increase greatly. The legal age of adulthood in Utah is 18.

Adams didn't feel this was fair—after an 18-year-old relative of his was facing multiple felony charges for having sex with a 13-year-old in 2023.

The Salt Lake Tribune broke the story of backdoor deals to lessen penalties for child rape on Saturday, August 2, 2025.

In a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune, Adams said the case involved "a serious mistake" by his relative, but he was "surprised by the severity of the charges" for a legal adult having sex with a child.

Adams said:

"Some have suggested this change was made to benefit the case I was made aware of involving the high school senior [who is related to Adams]. That is simply not true."

"While the sponsor of [the bill] was aware of the case, I did not request the legislation and did not intervene or give input on the drafting of the bill."

In 2024, the prosecution and defense were deadlocked in plea deal negotiations for Adams' unidentified relative who faced charges of two counts of child rape and two counts of child sodomy—all first-degree felonies with sentences of 25 years to life in prison and a requirement to register as a sex offender.

Then the Utah Legislature—based on an initial suggestion from Republican state Senate President J. Stuart Adams to Republican state Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore—changed the law to add a loophole.

His relative's defense attorney, Cara Tangaro, actually authored the bill which was then passed on to Republican state Representative Karianne Lisonbee to sponsor in the Utah House of Representatives.

Lisonbee said, after learning who wrote the bill she sponsored and why, that she opposed it. The legislation passed near the end of the legislative session when bills move quickly.

Lisonbee told The Salt Lake Tribune:

"All of my other work in the criminal justice space underscores that if I had known that the proposed language was intended to potentially lower the penalty for the crime of rape of a child, I would have held or amended the bill to remove that section."

"I will immediately add a repeal of that language to a bill file I have open."

Under the new law, if an 18-year-old is still in high school, they would be treated like a minor, facing the same penalties as a 17-year-old—a third-degree felony charge of unlawful sexual activity which doesn't include prison time or registering as a sex offender.

Two months after the law was changed, Adams' relative received a plea deal of time served—one week in jail and the 420 days they spent on home confinement after their arrest while the plea deal was negotiated—four years on probation, completion of sex offender treatment, a $1,500 fine, and 120 hours of community service.

Adams argued since the law wasn't sponsored by him, or the colleague he directly asked to consider changing the law, he had no influence on his relative's reduced sentence. He also cited his relative didn't receive exactly what the new law recommended as a sentence.

However, when the stalled plea deal negotiations were resolved, the defense and prosecution cited the new law.

Defense Attorney Cara Tangaro—author of the draft of the bill sent to the legislature—told Judge Michael DiReda:

"Your Honor may not be aware, but there was actually a legislative change this last session, which changed … some of the things with this case."

"Based on that, we came to a resolution."

Judge DiReda recused himself from the case two weeks later for unstated reasons, without approving the lesser sentence outlined in the plea deal.

Tangaro told newly assigned Judge Rita Cornish:

"You saw the legislative change."

"We all agree that’s not retroactive, but the [prosecutor's office] did change their offer based on that."

Judge Cornish accepted the lesser penalties negotiated by the defense and prosecution.

Adams' unnamed relative was an 18-year-old high school senior at the time of his sexual assault on a child. But the 13-year-old child he had sex with was only in junior high, not high school.

The child told her mother what happened in 2023 and wanted her parent to report it to the police. According to court records, a second individual, a friend of Adams' relative, also reported the crime to police hours later.

The mother of the junior high school rape survivor told The Salt Lake Tribune that she was shocked about the change to the law.

She said:

"It was out of nowhere. I felt like I was punched in the gut."

"I feel like a law is the law, regardless of who you are, but that wasn’t what was going on here. I feel like [Adams' 18-year-old relative] just got special treatment…and nobody was going to say anything about it."

The mother believes her daughter was never considered in both the legislative debate and the prosecution and plea deal for the criminal case.

In response to the backlash, Senate President Adams said:

"I recognize the sensitivity and emotion surrounding these issues and want to acknowledge the pain and difficulty felt by those who have been harmed."

"Both my wife and I are deeply concerned for everyone affected and express our sincerest apologies to those who have been hurt."

If only Adams cared as much about underage girls actually being raped, as he did about the remote possibility of four transgender athletes placing higher in a sporting event than a cisgender female.

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If you or someone you know experienced sexual assault, help is out there.

You can reach the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline by calling 1-800-656-4673, use their Live Chat tool: https://rainn.org/get-help, or visit the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.

In Canada, help is available through the Ending Violence Association of Canada website.