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SALT LAKE CITY — Corey L. Thomson testified in his own defense during a recent trial, but then he failed to show up to court the next day when a jury convicted him of sexually abusing a child.
The Midvale man has now been located and arrested in Salt Lake City.
Thomson, 36, was charged in 2019 in 3rd District Court with two counts of sodomy on a child and two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, first-degree felonies, involving a girl under 10 years old. He was originally booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on a $250,000 bail. But that was later reduced in court to $25,000, which he was able to post.
Thomson's case then became bogged down in the court system for four years. After numerous delays, a three-day trial started on April 9.
Thomson took the witness stand on April 10 for less than 30 minutes, according to the court docket. The next day however, Thomson didn't return to court. But the trial resumed without him and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill says the court will always strive to maintain the integrity of a case as long as the due process of the defendant is upheld. In this case, Gill says Thomson had already been given the chance to speak in his own defense.
"(The trial) would not have gone forward if everyone did not feel his due processes rights were protected," he said.
A jury found Thomson guilty that same afternoon on all four counts after 4½ hours of deliberation.
On Monday, employees of a plasma donation center in Salt Lake City called 911 to report that Thomson was in their lobby. A spokesman for the police department did not know Wednesday how the employees were able to recognize Thomson or how they knew there was a warrant out for his arrest.
When officers arrived, they verified Thomson's identity and also found a knife in his pocket. Because he was a convicted felon at that point, he was arrested for investigation of being a restricted person in possession of a weapon.
When asked about Thomson being able to post bail, even when he was facing four first-degree felony charges, Gill said it was Thomson's legal right to do so, even if his office doesn't agree with the bail reduction.
"My position has always been for certain categories of offenses — and when we have established probable cause — we think they should be held without bail," he said. "There shouldn't be enough money in the world to bail out if you're a risk to the community."
Thomson is scheduled to be back in court to be sentenced on Tuesday.
