Judge’s praise of abuser irks victim

PROVO, Utah — A woman says she is shocked by a Utah judge’s comments in which he called a former Mormon bishop convicted of sexually assaulting her a “good man” during his sentencing hearing.

Julia Kirby said Friday that Judge Thomas Low appeared to care more for her attacker than he did about her.

“He only cared about the person he was convicting, and I think that is really kind of despicable,” said Kirby, 23, who has given The Associated Press permission to publish her name

Low sentenced Keith Robert Vallejo to up to life in prison last week after a jury found him guilty of 10 counts of forcible sexual abuse and one count of object rape.

Kirby said she was 19 when Vallejo, a relative, groped her multiple times when she stayed at his house while attending Brigham Young University in 2013.

Kirby plans to file an official complaint against Low in the hopes of getting him removed as a judge.

Low is facing a deluge of complaints after saying “The court has no doubt that Mr. Vallejo is an extraordinarily good man. … But great men sometimes do bad things.”

The criticism began around the time Low freed Vallejo from custody after a jury convicted him, said Jennifer Yim, executive director of the Utah Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission.

But Yim said most of the roughly 40 emails, six voice mails and some Facebook messages received since late March came after Low sentenced Vallejo last week and seemed to get emotional during the hearing.

Ryan McBride, the prosecutor on the case, said Low’s comments were inappropriate and said they may have come in response to more than 50 character letters about Vallejo, most of them detailing the good things he has done.

Low declined comment through a court spokesman.