Man accused of raping student asks judge to let him go for Christmas

The Utah man accused of abducting and raping a 19-year-old student made his first appearance in court, asking the judge to let him go home to spend Christmas with his kids.

Madelyn Allen, a student at Snow College, was found alive in the basement coal room of the 39-year-old man’s house five days after she went missing. Authorities have said that she was naked and covered in coal when she was found.

She vanished on Monday after being spotted leaving her dorm in Ephraim in central Utah at around 9.22pm.

During his initial appearance in court on Thursday, Mr Brown asked the Sixth District Court judge to set him free so that he could spend Christmas with his children. He appeared on video from Sevier County Jail, where he has been since his Saturday arrest. He’s facing charges of obstruction of justice, aggravated kidnapping, rape, and object rape.

Court documents state that Mr Brown and Ms Allen first spoke in an online fetish group chat. Mr Brown then allegedly forced Ms Allen to take off her clothes and tied her up while he went to work. He later claimed that it was all a part of kidnapping role-play. The 19-year-old has said that Mr Brown threatened her family.

Judge Wallace Lee appointed a lawyer to represent Mr Brown and determined that he should be held without bail because he’s also wanted for a felony in a separate county and that he could be a threat to the surrounding community.

“It would be nice to be home for Christmas. I don’t get to see my kids,” Mr Brown said when he was asked to speak on the issue of the bail.

The 39-year-old is set to return to court on 10 January for a detention and preliminary hearing. He has previously been charged with traffic violations, assault, and witness tampering, according to court records.

An arrest warrant was issued for him in March 2018 after he failed to appear in court for witness tampering. He also failed to appear for a traffic violation in Cache County.

According to posts on social media, Mr Brown worked as an equipment operator but he has also showed his support for former President Donald Trump, law enforcement and gun rights. He has criticised President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and he has made fun of restrictive measures to stem the spread of Covid-19.

An image posted to his Facebook page on 7 November shows a girl holding a sign that says “human trafficking should scare you more than C-O-V-I-D”.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed on Sunday in the 6th District Court in Manti, Ms Allen first met Mr Brown in a bondage and domination group chat on the messaging app KIK, and they decided that he would pick her up on 13 December.

Surveillance footage from Snow College shows Ms Allen leaving her dorm on Monday night. Her roommates reported her missing when she didn’t come back the following day. Legal filings state that Ms Allen’s relationship with Mr Brown became violent and nonconsensual over the subsequent days.

He reportedly took her phone, only letting her text her family once to say “I love you” early on 14 December. The text alarmed her family, leading to them contacting law enforcement.

Legal filings also state that he tied her up while he was at work, discarded her phone when he found out that law enforcement was searching for her, took her wallet, and “threatened her, saying if she left or told anyone about him, he would come after her family and sister”.

KSL-TV reported that Mr Brown admitted to police that he had tied up Ms Allen to stop her from leaving, as well as taking her phone and threatening her family, but he claimed it was a part of a sexual role-play scenario. But authorities say Ms Allen was being held against her will. The affidavit states that Ms Allen told police that she didn’t want to have sex with Mr Brown, but that she didn’t leave because he had threatened her family and knew where they lived.

She reportedly added that Mr Brown had told her that he had mailed her phone to the southern border and that the police had stopped looking for her.

Authorities on the local, state, and federal level all took part in the search. Police used cellphone towers to locate Ms Allen in Loa, a small town south of Ephraim.

Police searched the town, which has around 500 residents, and spotted a person with light hair and a small build in the basement of a home on Main Street.

Mr Brown opened the door and told police he was alone in the home. He wouldn’t allow police to search the home without the permission of the owners – his parents. They were contacted and gave their permission for the home to be searched.

Officers found Ms Allen’s Snow College ID, a gun in an open suitcase, along with clothes that appeared to belong to Ms Allen. Mr Brown was arrested when the woman’s ID was found. When he was searched, police found that he was in possession of three knives, ABC4 reported.

Legal filings state police found Ms Allen in the basement coal storage room, naked and covered in coal, with Mr Brown later claiming it was part of the role-play.

Snow College and Ms Allen’s parents revealed that she had been found on Saturday.

“We got the phone call and [the police chief] said, ‘I have her.’ We dropped to our knees,” her father Jonathan Allen said, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. “We were so grateful, elated. We couldn’t describe the feelings that we had as we embraced each other.”

Ms Allen was reunited with her family after being taken to a hospital for a checkup.

“We are so excited to have our Madelyn home,” her mother Taunya Allen added. “We love her so much and she has been such a light and joy in our lives. We are so grateful that we can continue our lives together with her.”

Snow College President Bradley Cook said that the episode “reminds us of some dangers” that young people face online.

“You need to be careful … We just have to be ever vigilant about those kinds of interactions,” he added.

“The ordeal that she has been through is dangerous and traumatic, the details of which we have only begun to understand. She is a fighter. She is now a survivor,” Ms Allen’s uncle Jacob Allen said on Sunday, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. “We are grateful she is with us again so she can now recover.”