Many women testify of sexual abuse over 35 years ago in Fruit Heights

FARMINGTON — The chambers of a 2nd District courtroom were packed for an evidentiary hearing in the case of 76-year-old Alan Bassett Friday, as Judge Jennifer Valencia weighed a motion to dismiss the case entirely.

Bassett, a former air traffic controller, is accused of sexually abusing young girls who played at his Fruit Heights home from 1977 to 1989 and has already admitted to a number of instances of abuse and exhibitionism. He was arrested June 10, 2024, and charged with nine counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a second-degree felony.

Neighbors at the time, church members, and families of victims wore white "to symbolize the innocence that was destroyed by that man," former neighbor Patrice Pederson told KSL.com.

Bassett, wearing a neat white mustache and bow tie, broke down in tears on the witness stand, faced with a full courtroom. He did not deny much of the allegations, saying, "I'm not going to question a victim that comes up and accuses me. Why would anybody make that up?"

"He terrorized our neighborhood," said Kristy Sauter, who lived near the Bassett house. "The small, little selfish man terrorized our neighborhood."

Bassett said he confessed to a bishop in his local church congregation over 35 years ago and was pushed to turn himself in to police. In the hearing Friday, Bassett said he was motivated to confess because he "wanted to get over this," referring to a "sexual addiction."

"I never knew a door to be locked," Pederson said of the newly built Fruit Heights neighborhood during that time. "You could just run into any house, open up a fridge, and make yourself at home."

The house was always full of young girls, according to witnesses, and Bassett's wife taught dance for younger children in the basement.

But the defense has moved to dismiss the case, spurring the hearing on Friday, based on copies of an unsigned 1989 agreement between then-deputy Davis County attorney Brian Namba, Bassett and his lawyer at the time, Robert Faust — who is now a 3rd District judge — agreeing to not pursue criminal charges as long as he complied with a number of stipulations, including "meet and disclose his conduct and activities to all of the victims and their parents," court documents show.

Pederson says she is aware of an online support network, with around 50 women accusing Bassett of abuse. Many are not able to testify due to statute of limitations, a police booking affidavit says.

Prosecutor Jesse Bushnell and detective Derrick Pyles worked to show that Bassett did not report the full extent of his sexual abuse of the many young girls, leaving out numerous victims and incidents, while minimizing the severity of abuse.

"I knew there were more. I just couldn't remember who they were," Bassett said at the hearing. "I gave all the names that I could remember."

Multiple alleged victims and their parents, speaking on the witness stand, said Bassett never spoke to them about the abuse or offered to pay for therapy.

Women took to the witness stand Friday, one-by-one, relaying a series of heartrending accounts of the man, saying he abused them in rooms of the basement, the jacuzzi, the living room, the garage steps, the swimming pool, the master bedroom, the master bathroom, on camping trips and ski days, during water fights and playdates.

One woman told the judge of a time when she was 6 or 7, being among several girls sexually abused during a sleepover at the Bassett house. She said she remembered vividly being "scared to death that night in my sleeping bag, scrunched up with a little hole looking up the top of the stairs all night long ... watching the light under the door. I've never been so afraid in my life."

"I'm not a bad person," another woman said Bassett told her months after allegedly abusing her. "I just did a bad thing, and there's voices in my head that tell me to do bad things."

"I am screwed up because I have carried this thing for almost as far back as my memory goes," one woman testified. "it has negatively affected anything important to me — my relationships, the way I parent my kids, my marriage, my ability to make decisions, my ability to feel confident in standing up for myself. It feels like it's about damn time that that burden gets passed on to the responsible adult. I feel like the little me deserves that."

"Alan Bassett did disgusting, horrifying things," Pederson said, "but people knew. The district attorney knew. The police knew. And he issued a partial confession and nobody bothered to check anything that he said. ... It's shocking. They literally gave him a get out of jail free card."

"Creeps are creeps," she said. "It's the system that failed us."

"As a wife and a mother, as a woman, my heart absolutely breaks for the testimony that I have heard today," the judge said after over eight hours of testimony, "and I want the victims and their families, their friends to know that I've seen them, I have heard them and I have considered their input."

Bassett, who was arrested in June and released on house arrest in October, was found to have violated the terms of his release by making unauthorized stops during grocery trips, and failing to report being within 50 feet of children a number of times.

Valencia ordered bailiffs to take Bassett, to his clear surprise, into custody pending trial. He was cuffed in front of many of the women who had just testified against him, who celebrated in the hallways afterward. More witnesses will be called at a later date, likely in April, before Valencia rules on the motion to dismiss.

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