David Lawson Millett

Case report

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FARMINGTON, Utah — A North Salt Lake man who allegedly forced a suicidal woman to have sex has been linked to the crime by lab tests, say the Centerville police, according to a report by the Standard Examiner.

According to documents filed in a Davis County court, David Lawson Millett, 45, and two other people went to the woman’s home in January of this year after she texted one of them saying she “had taken a large amount of pills and was suicidal.”

She had locked herself in the bathroom, where she had cut herself and was intoxicated, according to the Centerville Police Department.

Although the woman, in her early twenties, told Millett and others to wait in her living room, he cleaned off her arms, but then kissed her, groped her, and forced her to perform a sexual act.

After first responders took her to the hospital, she reported the sexual assault, and an examination revealed Millett’s DNA on her mouth and neck.

The Davis County Attorney’s Office filed charges against Millett of first-degree felony forcible sodomy and second-degree felony forcible sexual abuse on May 21.

“The victim was intoxicated and suicidal and in a very vulnerable position, not able to defend herself,” Centerville Police Lt. Allen Ackerson said.

Prosecutors filed a request for detention asking that Millett be held without bail pending trial.

Theses types of cases are advancing more quickly since the state lab has reduced backlogs of testing sexual assault kits; according to Ackerson, the turnaround time is now around 40 days instead of several months.

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In 1999, Millett was sentenced in Utah for theft. In 1999, he also served several years in an Idaho prison from approximately 1999-2007 for attempted grand theft. He was sentenced to prison in Utah in 2022 for first degree felony sexual abuse.

Millett and his wife divorced in 2022.