Judge refuses plea agreement terms, gives former school district employee harsher sentence for molesting young girl

TERRETON — A district judge refused to abide by a plea agreement’s prison sentence recommendation for a 44-year-old former school district employee who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a young girl.

Dallas Dean Erickson was sentenced on June 8 by District Judge Steven Boyce to seven years fixed and 20 years indeterminate in prison. He will be required to register as a sex offender and pay at least $6,645.50 in court fines and fees.

Erickson will receive credit for two days already served.

He was initially charged with three counts of felony lewd conduct with a child under 16 years old, but accepted a plea agreement in March, in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count in exchange for the rest of the charges being dismissed.

The prosecution agreed to recommend no more than five years fixed at sentencing, which Boyce refused. The plea agreement was non-binding, meaning that Boyce could give Erickson a sentence harsher or less harsh than the one recommended.

Boyce also read an excerpt from a letter of support sent to the court on behalf of Erickson, which reportedly stated that the victim was also at fault for her own sexual abuse, something Boyce said he found concerning.

“I won’t name who it was written by, but at the end, it essentially stated that it’s not just Mr. Erickson’s fault, it’s the victim’s fault, and says punishment should be divided,” Boyce stated. “The court needs to, for the benefit of not only the victim but to send a message to society, deterrence of you, Mr. Erickson.”

RELATED | Local school employee arrested after student reports sexual abuse to officer

West Jefferson School District 253 Superintendent Shane Williams confirmed to EastIdahoNews.com that Erickson was a maintenance supervisor for the school district and is no longer employed there.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office has stated that the alleged crimes did not occur on school district property.

The case

On Oct. 16, 2024, a West Jefferson School Resource Officer received a report of sexual abuse of a student, according to a news release from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, on Wednesday,

According to court documents, the student reported Erickson had touched her without clothes on multiple times since July 2023. When officers spoke to Erickson, he claimed he was teaching her about her sexuality and “described to her about the female anatomy.”

Erickson reportedly admitted to sexually abusing the victim, but claimed it was “for her gratification, not his.”

The sentencing

The victim and her mother provided an impact statement to the court, describing the pain and suffering Erickson has caused them throughout the time the victim was being abused, and through the court process.

“The impacts of Dean’s choices on (the victim and her family) and the community need to be understood,” the victim’s mother said. “(The victim) is obviously the person who has been impacted the most by Dean’s decision to pose as one of my former students who had moved away, befriending (the victim) and sexualizing her through messages and eventually suggesting that she ask (Erickson) how to masturbate.”

The mother said that the victim eventually realized she was actually talking to Erickson, which led her to “mistrust everything and everyone around her.”

“Toward the end of her eighth-grade year, (the victim) plummeted from being a fun, friendly, and healthy girl to a depressed, wildly emotional wreck of a person,” the mother stated. “She started to listen to sad music twenty-four seven, and would say she wanted to kill herself repeatedly.”

The victim’s mother told the court that Erickson would threaten the victim in order to keep her from reporting the sexual abuse.

“(Erickson’s) warnings were varied, and they still cause her to worry. She worries he will harm her or send someone else to do so,” the mother said. “He also convinced her that if she did tell me, I wouldn’t believe her.”

The victim’s mother explained that her daughter is in constant fear because Erickson is still in her community.

“He is always in our community all the time, increasing the chances of her running into him,” said the mother. “She was told by well-meaning adults at her school that she just needed to move on from her trauma and embrace life. She was at rock bottom. Her choice to speak out exacted zero justice.”

The victim then spoke, saying she was not only abused sexually, but was also abused emotionally and mentally.

“What happened to me was really hard. I went through more than a little girl should have to go through,” the victim said. “He had been planning this for a long time because of how he did it. It wasn’t a quick idea. He had a whole plan; he set up a bunch of fake accounts to groom me and hurt me.”

The victim stated that Erickson would tell others lies about her and try to make her “look like the bad guy.”

“I feel like everyone was judging me, not seeing that I was not safe with him. Instead, he had everyone convinced that I was the bad guy, telling his coworkers that I was a ‘poor little slut,'” the victim said. “So many times I wanted to tell my mom about Dean and what he was doing. It felt wrong, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t, because he said if people found out, I would be known as the girl (who was) molested.”

The victim says Erickson even threatened to kill her if she reported the abuse, and due to his job at the school district, he would watch her in the hallways at school using the security cameras.

“He also said that if I told, he would ruin my life or kill me,” the victim said. “I was just a little girl trying to survive school, and all of a sudden I was trying to survive him.”

Jefferson County Deputy Prosecutor Scott Peterson recommended that Erickson serve an a fixed sentence of five years and indeterminate period of 25 years in prison, making it a maximum of 30 years, due to his inability to accept responsibility for the crime and the severe abuse of the victim.

“He places primary blame for his offending on his chronic viewing of pornography, his unsatisfying sexual relationship with his wife at the time, and on the victim,” Peterson said. “He also reported that he masturbated to fantasies of (the victim) following sexual contact with her, as thoughts of his contact with her were more arousing than the contact (itself).”

Erickson’s defense attorney, Kristopher Meek, argued that his client should only serve one year fixed in prison with no recommendation for indeterminate time, stating that he believes his client has remorse and has lost a lot in his life already because of the crimes he committed.

“Obviously, my client can’t undo what’s happened. And I think it’s important to note a few things he has said that are changed from the initial version of what he told law enforcement,” Meek said. “He said this, ‘I had crossed a line, I knew. I knew I was the adult with a lack of fortitude to stop it until the very end, upon turning myself in.”

Meek told the court that he believes Erickson is remorseful for the crimes he committed and able to strive to “make it right.”

“In talking with my client over the course of the past year plus, I believe this is true, your honor,” said Meek. “I think he’s truly remorseful for what has gone on here and what happened here. And he wants to do what he can to make it right.”

Meek stated that Erickson was also a victim of sexual abuse as a child and indicated that it could be part of what made him an abuser.

“His sexual preoccupation may stem from his own victimization,” Meek said. “I think it’s important that we see this case for what it is. My client wasn’t hanging out at the city park looking for a person to abuse; this was opportunistic.”

Erickson then spoke to the court through tears, apologizing to the community, the victim, and his family for the pain and suffering he had caused.

“I chose to do these things. I took advantage of the trust and vulnerabilities of the victim. The fear, shame, and anger that I have caused the victim and my family, I wish I could change, take back and reset,” Erickson said. “I know that is not possible, and why this is so serious. None of this should have ever happened, and it is entirely my fault.”

Erickson said he would “do anything to make this right” and reiterated that he claims he turned himself in.

“I have to do anything to try. I have taken steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again. I started by turning myself in; no one came, no warrant was issued,” said Erickson. “I confessed wholeheartedly to what I did.”

Before pronouncing the sentence, Boyce spoke to Erickson, explaining that he could not give him the agreed-upon sentence in the plea agreement due to the severity of the crime and the fact that Boyce believed he was not telling the full truth in his statement to the court.

“The narrative that you just decided to turn yourself in and be accountable, I don’t think it’s accurate,” Boyce said. “The victim discussed what happened with law enforcement, and it was still, as I understand, occurring at the time.”

According to Boyce, police reports indicate that after the victim alerted law enforcement about the abuse, they tried to interview Erickson, who had reportedly told his wife he was “headed to Utah to camp for a while, and intended to dispose of his phone to avoid detection.”

Boyce read from the report that Erickson “told his wife that his involvement with the victim was solely because she requested it.”

Boyce also referenced the “catfishing” by Erickson, saying it is rare to hear that term in court.

“You pretended to be someone that she would be interested in, that was age-appropriate, in order to start developing some sort of a sexual relationship where you tricked her. That sort of manipulation is really concerning to me,” said Boyce. “It’s an egregious case in terms of what happened and the manipulation by you of this victim.”