When 19-year-old carnival worker Jacob Lee Lambly was acquitted of sexually assaulting two teenage Duchesne girls earlier this week, he wasn't set free. He went straight back to jail.
Despite the not-guilty verdict, Lambly remains in the Salt Lake County Jail awaiting extradition to Skagit County, Wash., where prosecutors have charged him in another carnival-related sex crime.
Washington prosecutors charged Lambly with child fondling, which is a sex offense, said court documents filed Thursday in Utah's 3rd District Court state.
Salt Lake sex crimes Sgt. Don Bell said the Washington incident happened at a carnival in Mount Vernon, a city about 50 miles north of Seattle. Bell didn't know when the alleged crime occurred but said it was before the September 1999 Salt Lake incident.
"It's almost the exact same thing . . . But we can't bring stuff like (prior arrest histories) out in trial. Each case has to stand on its own," Bell said.
A Mount Vernon police spokesman acknowledged that his department had investigated Lambly but said he couldn't comment on the case's specifics because it has been turned over to the county attorney's office. Skagit County prosecutor Tom Verge, who is handling Lambly's Washington case, was unavailable for comment today. Efforts to contact Lambly's attorney, Robert K. Heineman of the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association, also were unsuccessful.
In Utah, a jury of two woman and six men deliberated for only 35 minutes before finding Lambly not guilty on three counts of aggravated sexual assault, a first-degree felony, and forcible sexual abuse, a second-degree felony. Prosecutors maintained Lambly twice had forcible sex with a 15-year-old girl and made unwanted contact with a 16-year-old girl at the Utah State Fair last year. Co-defendant in the case, Richard Wayne Williams, 21, previously pled guilty to two counts of sexual abuse, a second degree felony.
A mother of one of the Utah girls who accused Lambly, told the Deseret News Thursday that she requested Salt Lake detective James Chandler to examine Lambly's prior history after she questioned a carnival spokeswoman's claim that both men had passed mandatory employee background checks. Chandler discovered that Lambly was being investigated in Washington and notified Skagit County investigators that the carnival worker had been arrested in Salt Lake.
Lambly was served a Washington arrest warrant in jail while awaiting the outcome of his trial here and was informed he would be extradited if he won his Utah court battle.
"He has never left jail . . . and he knew that before he went to trial," Bell said.
Meanwhile, in Duchesne, the victim's mother said her daughter is coping with the courtroom disappointment.
"She had a chance to cry, but she's getting on with it," the mother said.
Bell wasn't sure when Lambly would be extradited but said he will remain incarcerated until he is sent to Skagit County.
You can reach Brady Snyder by e-mail at bsnyder@desnews.com