Monticello Man found guilty on 4 out of 7 counts of rape sentenced to 18 years to life
September 21, 2021
by Monte Wells
Back in July Tyler Robert Draper was found guilty on four of the seven counts of rape that he had been charged with. Yesterday, on the 20th of September, he was sentenced to 18 years to life in prison. Two of the counts received 5 years each, and the other two counts received 4 years each to run consecutively for a total of 18 years to life. He won’t be eligible for parole for 18 years.
The sentence reflects Judge Torgerson’s feelings that Mr. Draper was a predator and society was not safe with him in it. No matter how you feel about the sentence what has happened to the victims, Mr., Draper, and their families is just more evidence of the rape culture that has been allowed to thrive.
In my opinion, this is a tragedy because none of it needed to happen. Hindsight is always 20/20 but, in this case, it doesn’t require hindsight to know things could have and should have been different. When Mr. Draper was in elementary school officials were aware of his inappropriate behavior such as flashing students and bullying. Despite this school offices and others refused to hold him accountable and to get him the help he needed. As Mr. Draper got older it appears he followed in the footsteps of others in the community becoming part of the untalked about rape culture.
As many are aware Mr. Draper is not the only young man in this community to do what he has done. Others have gone on undetected and walk among us today because of the fear their victims still have of them. Others have slipped through the system with a slap on the hand and yet their carnage and destruction still rest upon their victims, the victim’s families, and the community.
This rape culture seems to be fueled by some barbaric attitudes of “Boy’s will be boy’s”, “Forgive and Forget”, “The girls caused this to happen”, “Don’t turn them (rapists) in because they will destroy your life” as one victim was told after being gang raped. This doesn’t even address the attitude of people in the community punishing and harassing the victims and their families until they are forced to move away.
Over the years people have tried to fight against these attitudes to only be ignored and shut down by local government officials, school officials, and religious authorities. Despite every effort over the years, today there are seven more victims and their families and friends who are suffering. We have a young man who will spend the next 18 years in prison because he was not held accountable early on so he could receive the help he needed. This is not one isolated event but is the result of many years of people turning a blind eye to this problem as I have already mentioned.
Things need to change so that this tragedy never happens again to another person in our community, and so all the victims over the years can find peace and their abusers can get the help they need to overcome this destructive behavior so that it will stop.
Mr. Draper may be going to prison, but the accountability for what has happened to the victims as well as Mr. Draper rests upon those who could have done something but refused to do anything over the years.
The following information is from our original story that was posted on July 30, 2020.
On June 17, 2020, Tyler Robert Draper of Monticello, Utah was arrested on one count of Aggravated Assault and one count of Rape.
On July 9, 2020, there was an Amended Information filed with Judge Don Torgerson of the Seventh District Court in Monticello to amend the June 17, 2020 charges. The amended information listed seven counts of first-degree felony rape accruing between June 2016 to March 2020, and one count of third-degree felony aggravated assault.
According to the probable cause statement for the arrest, in March 2020, when the aggravated assault and rape were allegedly committed, Tyler Draper had “pending court cases for charges of assault, unlawful detention, the trespass of a dwelling and the second case of witness tampering in 7th District Court. He was on pretrial release that had been extended because of Covid19.”
Having allegedly committed rape at least seven times over a four-year period, Tyler Draper appears to fit the definition of a serial rapist.
“A serial rapist is someone who commits multiple rapes, whether with multiple victims or a single victim repeatedly over a period of time.”
How does a serial rapist go undetected in a city with a population of 1,900?
Perhaps the following related history will help answer this question.
Around 2005, the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department investigated a case in which three teenage boys from Monticello allegedly sexually assaulted some local girls. According to a deputy who worked the case, it involved 48 felony counts. Unfortunately, at the time the County Prosecutor refused to file charges against the young men. With local court authorities refusing to file charges, the case was elevated to the Utah State Attorney General’s Office. According to the San Juan County Deputy working on the case, the AG’s investigator mishandled the investigation, which set things back. Three years passed with no charges filed in the case. Finally, with some help from a federal agent, the case was brought to the attention of the U.S. Attorney.
The U.S. Attorney became involved because the boys had used their cell phones to take photographs of their teenage victims, which they then shared with several adults and juveniles in the area. These actions constituted a federal crime associated with distributing child pornography. The U.S. Attorney told the County Attorney that if charges were not filed against the three young men, he would file federal charges on them which would carry a mandatory five-year minimum sentence. With that threat on the table, the case was turned over to the Grand County, Utah Prosecutor, and the three were finally charged and convicted.
Strangely, the three were convicted on relatively insignificant charges that did not require them to register as sex offenders. Along with the challenge of getting charges filed against the young men, one victim and her family were so poorly treated by people in the community that they eventually moved away from the area. Local religious leaders told the people in the community that “they needed to forgive and forget and move on.”
Other teenagers in the school system followed these boys’ examples and continued to intimidate, bully, and assault other females. This patronizing “boys will be boys” attitude became even more evident in 2008 when at the high school, two boys began sexually harassing one female in class until she started to cry and left the room. Her friend followed her out of the classroom to help her. When her friend returned to the classroom one of the boys began to harass her. When the girl stood up to him he grabbed her and held her against her will. She asked to be let go and he refused. She broke loose and slapped him. He then grabbed her again and she punched him, and he stopped bothering her. He then went to the Principal’s office to report the girl for slugging him.
At the time, the Assistant Principle took statements from several kids who were present during the incident, including one of the friends of the boy that grabbed the girl and got punched. All the witnesses stated that the boy was the aggressor, and the Assistant Principal agreed that the girl did nothing wrong. Around a week after the incident, the assistant to School Superintendent and the principal disregarded the investigation of the assistant principal. The assistant school superintendent lived right next door to the boy so whether connected or not, the school district threw out the Assistant Principal’s findings. In a stunning reversal, charged the girl with assault and referred her to juvenile court. The parents of the girl were asked to not tell people what happened so that “everyone could move on.”
The girl's parents along with several other parents whose children had fallen victim to this type of sexual harassment and bullying attempted to resolve the issue by appealing to school officials and the School Board. Several letters were presented to the school officials with details of what had been happening to their kids. These letters were sent to the School Board, School Board Chairman, principals, and school district administrators. One of the letters identified Tyler Draper, who was a student at the elementary school at the time and had a history of intimidating, bullying, and harassing other students.
A couple of incidents involved the young Tyler Draper exposing himself to other male students, and a female student on at least one occasion. Reports were made to school officials about Draper’s behavior starting in first grade. Unfortunately, the parents’ letters and signs of troubling behavior on the parts of Tyler Draper and other boys, went ignored by officials. One official even stated to one of the victims’ grandparents that it was just “boys being boys.” This dangerously permissive attitude within the School Board and school district administration, left parents no other choice but to file a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education.
On January 8, 2009, a formal complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education against the San Juan County School District for violating title IX due to the sexual harassment, assault, and bullying of female students at the Monticello High School. The U.S. Department of Education started a full investigation into the allegations and found the School District to be in violation of Title IX by allowing the above hostile conditions — Case number 08091071.
The US Department of Education closed the case around 2012, indicating that the school district had become compliant with Title IX. Despite this, the students identified as the ones intimidating, bullying, and sexually harassing other students, were not addressed by officials and the behavior continued and escalated.
In August 2015, a complaint of sexual assault was filed with the Monticello Police Department. The case was dragged out and it did not appear the city PD was going to act. Around November 13, 2015, a request was made for a copy of the police report that had been filed in August by the complainant. When the City Manager gave the complainant the requested report, the complainant noticed that it indicated the alleged sexual assault took place on November 13, 2015 15:12, which was off by several months and not what was reported by the complainant. The report had none of the supporting evidence including text messages and other documents that had been given to the officer in August.
It appeared that the report was filled out after the complainant requested a copy of it. The City Manager at the time, along with the Monticello Police Chief, appear to have doctored and delivered a fake report to the complainant. The City Attorney and MPD refused to take any action, and the City Manager at the time appears to have turned a blind eye to the misconduct.
As a City Councilman at the time, I presented the above incident to the council in December of 2015, along with another incident of rape that had taken place the night of a school dance just a few weeks before. The rape that occurred the night of the dance was reported by the victim that night to the Monticello Police Chief. The victim and the Chief recovered some clothing from the scene of the incident at Lloyd’s Lake. That was the last time the victim heard from the chief. The chief failed to report the rape to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS), as required by state law when there is a juvenile victim. The Chief also failed to notify the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office since the incident took place in the county.
Approximately two weeks after the Lloyd’s Lake rape was reported to the Monticello City Police Chief, the parents of the victim mentioned the incident to a San Juan County deputy who had not heard a thing about it. The deputy then filed a report and opened a case on the incident. When the DCFS manager was asked who notified them of the rape, he stated, “the first we heard about the rape was from the Sheriff’s Office.” This was proof that the MPD Chief had not reported the rape to DCFS, which constitutes a Class B Misdemeanor. This violation of the law was reported to the City Manager who then refused to investigate the incident.
I persisted and I gathered statements from the Sheriff’s Office and the DCFS manager at the time and presented it all to the City Council in a closed meeting. Three of the five councilmen, the Mayor, and the City Manager refused take action regarding the fabricated report the chief had conjured up in November, or the illegal omissions of the MPD Chief concerning the rape at Lloyd’s Lake. Once again, officials ignored the criminal offenses, and the “boys will be boys” attitude promulgated.
In 2020, twelve years after officials were first made aware of Tyler Draper’s dangerous behavior, he was arrested for a series of heinous crimes. There may be additional victims who never came forward because they felt pressured to stay silent, or knew their reports would be ignored. The casualty list of this “boys will be boys” subculture could have been prevented instead of promoted. When does the community come together to correct the problem, instead of justifying the behavior, ignoring the crimes, and allowing decades of sick secrets to fester?
So, the question bears asking, how can an alleged serial rapist have gone undetected in Monticello, Utah, a town of less than 2,000 people? The answer is; he did not go undetected. Early on the signs were there and ignored, and the abusive behavior was kept secret, and played off as “boys will be boys.” Forgiving and forgetting have their place, but those spiritual principles will not make this go away. Bullying, sexual harassment, assault and rape are serious crimes that must be addressed through the tangible means of the criminal court system. If these crimes, and the attitudes that enable them, are not confronted with courage and seriousness, they will continue and escalate, as Monticello’s recent history has proven. Our children and this community deserve much better. It is time to confront this painful issue, no matter how many generations it goes back. Otherwise there will be more victims, and more young people whose lives are squandered in a criminal lifestyle, or sitting in prison. We can be thankful that the current county prosecutor has filed charges and taking this issue to court, but once again the local paper doesn’t cover the story and few people are aware of what is going on.
Silence and secrecy is not the answer.
