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PROVO — A Utah County man has been found guilty of sexually abusing and raping a then 13-year-old girl he met at a charter school in Provo while volunteering as a soccer coach and working in the cafeteria.
Following five days of trial, a jury on Monday determined Charles Tracy Camara, 44, was guilty of each of the charges against him, which include two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, three counts of rape of a child, and five counts of sodomy on a child, all first-degree felonies.
Camara was a volunteer coach for an unofficial soccer team and worked in the lunchroom at Walden School of Liberal Arts for a short time. He met the victim while at the school, and later became familiar with her and her family. Camara stopped working with the school in 2015.
The crimes occurred between July 2015 and July 2016. The victim testified that the abuse began slowly and later escalated. She talked about wondering if others in her age group were going through similar circumstances and expressed feeling alone and scared.
"I can't work through any of my trauma until this is all over because if I do, then I have to go back up on the stand and relive all of it," the girl said during her testimony. "And it affects my relationship with men, women, elderly, young ... I get horrible flashbacks, I've been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and PTSD."
"It feels like Tracy's always there," she continued. "It feels like I'll never work through this and I'll never get over this."
The prosecutor, Sandi Johnson, argued that delayed reporting is normal in instances like this and said that there is enough information to corroborate the allegations from the victim, including phone location data, which puts Camara at the location where the victim had claimed she was first raped, on the specific date in September 2015.
Defense attorney Heidi Bogus presented witnesses who knew Camara well, who testified to his character and had been around the victim and Camara during the time when the sexual abuse was allegedly going on. Camara chose not to testify.
In the end, the jury deliberated for four hours before finding Camara guilty on all charges. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 20.
