MURRAY -- She wanted to make sure she got out alive. She had a little boy to go home to.

"I said, 'No.' I said, 'You need to stop this. This is not what I came here for,' " she said. "He was just laughing and saying things to me.As soon as the man walked away from her, she shoved her underwear into her purse, clutched a shirt to her chest and fled.

She had been raped. Not once, but twice.

"I started freaking out," she said. "I cried all the way home."

Two months later, she is still crying. She is also mad.

Mad because Salt Lake County Attorney David Yocom has declined to prosecute a Sandy man for the alleged rape of this 19-year-woman. Yocom said he doesn't believe a jury would convict, because the woman, a single mother of a 4-year-old with a full-time day job, was working for an escort service -- dancing, sometimes stripping for men in the privacy of their homes or hotel rooms.

"By not prosecuting they are basically telling me that I did something wrong. That it's my fault," said the woman, who with cropped blond hair and big, green eyes looks like the neighborhood high school girl.

She is not the only one who is crying.

Sandy police detective Sophie Mallas took two rape cases to the prosecutor's office for screening. The two young women, Diamond and Destiny, were working for the same Salt Lake escort service. Both were sent to see the same customer at the same Sandy motel.

Destiny went on a Wednesday night in September. Diamond went on Thursday. Both cases were declined.

"Neither of the rape allegations can meet the standard of proof necessary to obtain a conviction before a reasonable jury in this jurisdiction," reads a letter from Yocom to Sandy Police Chief Sam Dawson.

"Part of me feels like I let them down. The system let them down," Mallas said. "There was never any question about what they did. I never saw them as anything but victims."

Escort services are legal in Utah. The law allows an escort to appear partially clothed or nude before clients but does not allow a client to touch a woman or to engage in sexual activity of any kind.

Destiny's visit to the Sandy hotel room was only the third time she had taken a call for the escort service. The first man was older, kind and mostly wanted her to talk to him and fetch him drinks. She went to his home, stayed an hour and left, pocketing the $60 fee for the agency and a $150 tip. A few weeks later she met the second at a motel. They talked, she danced and left. She never felt threatened.

"It wasn't an easy decision to do this," she said. "But as a single mom, there aren't a lot of resources for you in Utah. I applied for welfare. I applied for food stamps and I got nothing. Everyone said I make too much money. I make $8 an hour. How can that be too much money when you have a kid to raise?"

Diamond's story is the same. Married a short time, she and her husband agreed that dancing would provide a short-term solution to their financial struggle. She had worked for about six months before the night of the alleged rape. That night, her husband drove her to the motel and waited in the car while she danced. Then he drove her to the hospital.

"I was convinced from the evidence that we had a case," said Mallas.

According to a search warrant filed in 3rd District Court, the evidence includes client records that showed the man's three-year history with escort services that said he was aggressive and rude. That he "didn't listen" and he drank a lot.

In Destiny's case, there is also strong physical evidence of injuries she suffered during the rapes, Mallas said. But still, prosecutors declined.

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The man, 32, was arrested by Sandy police and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of rape on Sept. 10. He spent about 36 hours in jail and was released. A police report shows his pregnant wife thought he was at work on the nights he rented the room at the Extended Stay America motel.

"It's like we have no rights. I feel like (prosecutors) are looking at us and saying you're a lower part of the population. You are a part of society we don't want to deal with. You're a stripper. You put yourself in that situation; now deal with it," Destiny said. "It wasn't right what he did. Now he's basically walking around like he was innocent, thinking he can do whatever he wants."

It's possible he may have been thinking that for some time, Mallas said.

"I don't know how many others he's done this to," she said, "who are just afraid to call us."

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