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COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — After Salt Lake County prosecutors declined multiple requests to file criminal charges against a man accused of date rape, police decided to ask state prosecutors to look at the case.

On Thursday, the Utah Attorney General's Office agreed to file rape and sodomy charges against a Cottonwood Heights man.

"Each case that is prosecuted by the Utah Attorney General’s office is screened independently of other agency findings. Once in a while, the AG’s office will take cases that have been denied by other agencies. Reasons vary, but include new information at the time of screening, resource availability, and investigative findings,” said Daniel Burton, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office.

But what has Cottonwood Heights police and the alleged victim — an 18-year-old woman — most concerned about the case are the reasons the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office outlined in its initial letter for declining to file criminal charges. The letter seemed to indicate it was because the alleged perpetrator was too drunk to know what he was doing.

According to a Dec. 3 letter sent to the Cottonwood Heights Police Department from the district attorney's office, they declined to prosecute the case due to "insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt" as well as "problems with defense of voluntary intoxication negating his mens rea."

Mens rea is a legal term that means with criminal intent or guilty knowledge and wilfulness.

On Thursday, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said he, too, was concerned with the language from the initial declination letter, which is why he looked at the case again.

"As an administration, when it was brought to our attention, we were also concerned about that. And because of that, I instructed my senior staff to go back and take a look at this and re-review this again thoroughly," he said. "I found that to be troubling as well."

Still, after the case received a second and third set of reviews from senior levels of the district attorney's office as well as several local attorneys, the office still declined to file charges in the case because of insufficient evidence.

The woman who police say was attacked, however, feels she has been victimized again by the whole process.

"I get why people don't want to come forward with (rape allegations). It's hard enough," she said.

The woman, whom KSL agreed not to identify, said despite months of both physical and emotional trauma, she will press on with the case and is glad the attorney general's office has agreed to take it.

"He raped the wrong girl because I won't be quiet about it," she said.

On Sept. 13, 2015, the woman said she went to a party with friends and ran into the 19-year-old man. She says she had known the man for about a month and a half.

When the night was over, she said the man was too drunk to drive and she agreed to give him a ride home. When they got to his house, he quickly ran away from the car. The woman said she wanted to make sure he got inside OK, so she followed him. She found him in a bedroom, and after he started kissing her, she agreed to consensual sex.

But she said what started as a consensual situation soon became an assault.

"He pins my arms and uses his body weight and he pushes me and tells me to relax," she said. "So he knows at this point that he's hurting me. He doesn't care, and I'm not going anywhere, he made that clear. … I told him no every single time."

The woman said she was overcome by paralyzing fear and intense pain at the same time.

When she was able to knock him away, she said he got dressed and went to sleep. The woman gathered her clothes, having to at one point reach over the man's sleeping body to grab a piece of clothing, and ran out of the door to her car.

Once she was there, she said she was too shocked to think clearly and didn't know what to do.

"I can't think, but I can think. I can't breathe, but I can breathe. And I'm like, 'Should I call my mom? Should I call the police? But if I call the police he'll get in trouble. But he's someone I care about and trusted. Is this rape? Did I just get raped?'" she said she asked herself.

The woman initially decided not to call police.

"I didn't want to look like a liar. I didn't want to look like a crazy girl that cries rape," she said. "I just lost all control of everything. … Nobody tells you what to do in that situation."

She didn't tell her parents initially. It wasn't until after consulting with a school counselor and a friend that she went to the hospital for a sexual assault examination.

"My body was a crime scene," she said. "I got poked, prodded, I got dye everywhere, asking me questions ..."

After having to repeat her story many times to police, prosecutors, family members and others, the woman said she was forced to keep re-living it, and she fell apart.

She dropped out school and says she did nothing but stay home and sleep and eat.

"It was hard to leave my house. I think I'd see (him) everywhere walking around. So I stopped going. And I didn't have a job," she said. "I don't have male friends. I get very aggressive, my thoughts do, when I notice a guy staring at me or he's too close. I get really paranoid."

The woman says she recently got a job just to get out of the house and try to re-acclimate herself around others. But the stress still affects her daily.

"Nothing could make it better. Nothing still can make it better," she said.

Gill said deciding not to file charges was not an easy decision. But his office stands by its decision.

"If the attorney general's office wants to file, it's within their prerogative to do so. And unless they have different evidence or maybe a different approach, that's within their prerogative to do so," he said.

The woman believes it's a solid case. Still, she is not looking forward to reliving it.

"I'm going to get picked apart in court. It's going to be long. It's going to be hard; it's so hard to have my stuff together when I'm in the middle of all this," she said.

But she believes it will happen again if she doesn't step forward.

"I want to make sure it ends with me. I want to make sure I'm the last one."

Christopher Jordan Anger, 19, was charged Thursday by the Utah Attorney General's Office with forcible sodomy and object rape, both first-degree felonies. Charging documents filed in 3rd District Court specify that the man's alleged actions occurred without the victim's consent.

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