B.C. man charged with sexual assault at University of Utah dorm room
(University of Utah/Facebook)
A British Columbia man has been arrested for sexually assaulting a young woman in her dorm room during the first week of the school year last fall.
Prosecutors have charged Ben Smyth, from Saanichton, with sodomy, sexual abuse and rape.
The 19-year-old, who is a diver in his second year at the Utah school, went to the woman's dorm room after confirming she was alone last August, according to an indictment filed this week.
He asked her to play "truth or dare" and then allegedly raped her while she resisted physically, said she "did not want to do that," shook her head no and told him she was in pain.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said Smyth was arrested upon returning to the United States this week.
"It is our understanding that he is in custody in Seattle," Gill said
Scott Wilding, Smyth's attorney, declined to comment on the charges or whether he had returned to surrender voluntarily or was caught when his return to the country triggered the warrant.
The indictment, which does not name the woman, also says that when detectives went to serve Smyth with a protective order to keep him away from the woman, a roommate said he had moved out. A private investigator later told detectives that Smyth had returned to Canada upon learning he was under investigation for rape.
When police interviewed him, he initially denied knowing the woman but later acknowledged having sex with her and that she was in pain.
Detectives also said that Smyth's friends described him as bragging "about the number of women he has sex with," which he compiled into a list to show others, according to court documents.
The University of Utah told CTV News that it suspended Smyth from its swimming and diving program in February, after it was made aware of "serious allegations" against him.
"We take matters of this type very seriously, and have continued to monitor the situation," said the University in a statement Thursday.
"We will not have further comment as this matter proceeds through the legal process."
The university says that Smyth was still enrolled at the school as of the spring 2023 semester, which ended on April 25.
Gill said earlier this week after a warrant for Smyth's arrest was issued that his office was pursuing any means to return him to Utah.
The diver's arrest is at least the second time Pac-12 swimming and diving has confronted rape allegations in recent years. In 2016, Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner was found guilty of raping a woman after two graduate students caught him on top of an unconscious woman behind a dumpster on campus.
With files from Sam Metz, the Associated Press
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