Bruce T Jeppesen

Bruce Jeppesen Case Summary

2007 – Logan, Utah

Bruce T. Jeppesen “was prominent in the local LDS ward, having been asked by the
stake president to be an elders quorum president. That position, Anderson (Jeppeson’s ex-
wife) noted acidly in her statement to Judge Hadfield, came at the same time as he was
raping her daughter on a cold cement floor in their basement.” Jeppesen “turned himself in
to the police and confessed to having “multiple sexual-intercourse incidents,” with a child,
then 12, during the fall of 2005, according to a police report.”

“The judge had agreed to a plea deal… Jeppesen would get six years’ probation and no jail
or prison time. Surprised that the victim had not been notified of the deal as required by
Utah statute and the Victims Rights Act, Judge Hadfield’s only caveat to the plea deal was
that the victim had to be told, adding that her input could still affect the case.

Utah Crime Victims Legal Clinic’s Heidi Nestel, who eventually represented Tina, argued in
court pleadings that the plea deal effectively led to Tina being “re-victimized by a system
which was supposed to protect her rights, but instead failed to even address her rights.”

“She later wrote, “Rarely, if ever, does an adult rapist of a 12-year-old girl never spend one
day in jail or prison — yet, this was the known agreement at the time of plea.”

On January 8, 2008 Jeppesen was sentenced on two second-degree felony counts of child
sexual abuse. Deputy Attorney General Kristine Knowlton, told the court that Jeppesen’s
confession, supposedly an act of contrition, was “cloaked in secrecy and deception, and as
a result of that, the damage to the victim and her family has been extraordinary.”

“Knowlton got the plea deal quashed, and Jeppesen was sentenced to two concurrent
terms of 15 years in the Utah State Prison.”