AMERICAN FORK — A former Lone Peak High School student Tuesday detailed several sexual encounters she said she had with the principal of the school's seminary program.
The girl, now 17, testified that she shared many things with Michael J. Pratt earlier this year: her concerns, her fantasies, birthday gifts and even the swine flu.
She said in early June while she was attending Especially For Youth, a weeklong LDS religious camp, Pratt picked her up twice and drove her to places where they could be intimate. That followed several instances in May where she said he pulled her out of school for sex in locations throughout Utah County.
The testimony came during a preliminary hearing for Pratt, who was initially charged with 21 felonies, including forcible sodomy, object rape and forcible sex abuse. Fourth District Judge Christine Johnson Tuesday ordered him to stand trial on 15 of those charges. Six felonies were dropped because the judge said testimony was not presented to support them.
Pratt, 37, is scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 10 on 14 first-degree felonies and one second-degree felony.
The girl said the second time he picked her up from Especially For Youth, they engaged only in kissing because she had the swine flu. She testified that "Brother Pratt" also got the H1N1 flu after the encounter.
The girl said her relationship with Pratt began as a friendship when she asked for his permission to change seminary teachers. She ended up spending more time in his office than in seminary class, she said, and the relationship later turned sexual as they discussed running away to get married either in Las Vegas or Africa.
"He seemed like a good friend and I trusted him," she said. "Right away I had feelings of friendship for him."
At one point, she said, Pratt told her he loved her and described a detailed fantasy involving sneaking her out of school in his car, having sex at a bed and breakfast and fulfilling her dream of going to Africa. Then, she said, he tried to make that fantasy a reality.
But the stress of the situation was so great she had an anxiety attack and ended up in the hospital, the girl said.
Near the end of the school year, the teen testified that Pratt took her from the high school several times. She described how Pratt would give her his car keys and she would get into his car and lie down in the back seat. Pratt would then get into his car and drive as far as the Mount Timpanogos Temple in American Fork. Once there, she said, Pratt would allow her to sit in the front seat and they would drive to places including Vivian Park and Bridal Veil Falls.
She said her mother caught her with Pratt on Mother's Day shortly after he picked her up from her house. Her father told Pratt to stay away from her, but the teen said she continued to see him secretly.
She said the places they had sexual encounters included the seminary building's roof, a mine near Eureka, a ravine near her house and an abandoned house in her neighborhood, which a man who discovered them there later told an investigator "smelled like sex and chemicals."
In court Tuesday, prosecutors asked the girl to detail her sexual activities with Pratt by listing them in different colored pens on a large calendar. Despite appearing nervous while describing specific sexual acts, she seemed mostly relaxed and even laughed and showed flashes of humor at times.
Prosecutors played a video she recorded of Pratt playing guitar in his office and singing a song she said he wrote for her. After he finished the song, the girl could be heard applauding and asking him to sing it again.
The lyrics, presented during the hearing, read in part:
"You are the one who sees me
The one who believes in all I can be
Not just for now but for eternity ...
We both know that I just won't ever deserve the girl I'm with
Sometimes it makes me sick of who I can be."
Pratt was arrested July 9 after an undisclosed party filed a report with the state Division of Child and Family Services. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints terminated his job after the allegations surfaced.
e-mail: pkoepp@desnews.com