For years, Utah allowed government officials to do something other states banned: ask a person who reports a sexual assault to take a polygraph test.
That will change soon. Earlier this month, state lawmakers passed a bill that prohibits police and other government officials from requesting polygraph tests for alleged sex assault victims. Gov. Spencer Cox signed it into law on Thursday, and it goes into effect in May.
Experts say these tests are known to be especially unreliable with victims of sexual abuse. That’s because victims may have stress and anxiety recounting their assault that the polygraph may interpret as deception. Other states don’t allow them to be used with assault victims for this reason.
It took two years and three legislative sessions for Utah state Rep. Angela Romero, the House minority leader, to get the bill across the finish line. When she first sponsored it in 2024, she cited reporting from The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica as she told her fellow legislators the damaging effects polygraph tests can have on people who are reporting sexual abuse.
In the case covered by the news outlets, state licensors asked a man to take a polygraph test after he reported that his therapist, Scott Owen, had touched him inappropriately. The test results indicated he was being deceptive, and that led the patient to drop his complaint. Owen was allowed to continue to practice for two more years, until others came forward with similar allegations. Owen is now in prison after admitting he sexually abused patients.
Romero said in a recent interview that she was determined to bring the bill back for that former patient.
“For me, it was really specifically for that one individual who was not believed,” Romero said, “and then their perpetrator went on to harm other people.”
Cox signed the legislation during a small ceremony at his office, telling Romero that she “has been such a champion, and made a difference and saved lives.” The governor also nodded to The Tribune and ProPublica’s reporting driving change.
Provo police began investigating Owen in 2023 after The Tribune and ProPublica published a story that detailed a range of sexual assault allegations from the man given the polygraph test, identified in previous reporting under the pseudonym Andrew, and three others.
Former patients who spoke to the news outlets said they sought Owen’s help because he was a therapist who had built a reputation as a specialist who could help gay men who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They said he touched them inappropriately during those sessions, some of which were paid for with church funds.
Half of states have laws that explicitly prohibit law enforcement from conducting a polygraph test with someone reporting a sexual assault. Some go further, barring a broader group of government employees beyond law enforcement from requiring an alleged sexual assault victim to take one.
Although Romero’s bill had support from prosecutors and police each session she proposed it, there was pushback from defense attorneys and some fellow legislators who wanted to keep polygraph tests as an option because alleged sex assaults often have no other witnesses.
Polygraph test results are not admissible in court because of their unreliability. But Steve Burton, with the Utah Defense Attorney Association, said in a recent legislative hearing that it is still valuable for prosecutors and investigators to consider those results before deciding whether to pursue criminal charges.
“This is often one of the only things that a defense attorney can ask for or use in order to try to show that their client may be telling the truth,” he said.
Romero pushed back on that idea, saying there are other kinds of interview techniques that authorities can use to help determine whether someone’s account is truthful.
“This is not a way,” she said. “Especially when you’re dealing with someone who has been a victim. You could revictimize that person. And it also could discourage that person from going forward and participating in the process of criminally prosecuting their perpetrator.”
“The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Gone Through”
Reporting from The Tribune and ProPublica showed the damaging effects a polygraph test had on the man who reported Owen to state licensors.
Andrew reported Owen to Utah’s Division of Professional Licensing in 2016. As part of the investigation, licensors offered polygraph tests to both Andrew and Owen.
Owen declined. Andrew agreed, recalling that an investigator told him passing would bolster what was essentially one person’s word against another’s.
But the polygraph results, Andrew said, suggested he was being deceptive. Polygraph tests generally function to record signs of internal stress, which could suggest someone is not telling the truth.
“I had so much trauma,” he told The Tribune and ProPublica. “And so, certainly, when they asked me questions about the particular things that happened in therapy, it’s going to elicit a very strong emotional response.”
The result affected his mental health, he said, and he told an investigator he no longer wanted to pursue the complaint.
In a 2016 public reprimand from licensors, Owen admitted giving Andrew hugs — touching he called inappropriate but “non-sexual.” Andrew had reported that Owen groped him, encouraged him to undress and kissed him during sessions.
Officials with DOPL said they believe they responded appropriately to the complaint. But communications between Andrew and an investigator suggest that the agency’s decision not to more harshly discipline Owen rested largely on his denial and on Andrew’s polygraph results.
Owen pleaded guilty to felony charges in February 2025, admitting he sexually abused two patients and led them to believe that sexual touching was part of therapy. He pleaded no contest in a third patient’s case.
Andrew was among more than half a dozen men — mostly former patients — who spoke during Owen’s sentencing hearing a month later about how he had harmed them.
“The experience with Scott Owen has been the worst thing I’ve ever gone through,” Andrew said. “I don’t think he belongs in society anymore.”
A judge sentenced Owen to at least 15 years in prison. He’s currently at the central Utah prison facility.
A New State Task Force
The state is addressing some of the shortcomings identified by The Tribune and ProPublica in another way as well: creating a task force to look into a rise in sexual misconduct complaints that state licensors say they’ve seen against licensed professionals. The task force will focus on health care, mental health and massage therapy, professions state officials say have historically received the highest percentage of sexual misconduct complaints.
The news organizations reported that more than a third of mental health professionals who received discipline from licensors beginning in 2012 were accused of sexual misconduct. In 2023, DOPL spokesperson Melanie Hall said the agency was aware that certain license types “have a tendency towards certain types of violations.” The agency, she said, “takes these factors into account when investigating complaints, and takes appropriate disciplinary action when necessary.”
The task force, which was announced earlier this month, will focus on suggesting changes to the law and creating resources to help victims more easily report misconduct to the state.
It also plans to develop a standardized process for sharing reports among agencies that might have knowledge of an accusation — something that is not currently legally required. The Tribune and ProPublica highlighted this gap in their reporting on Owen’s case: Although Andrew and at least two others reported Owen to DOPL, licensors never shared those reports with Provo police.
Margaret Busse is the executive director of the Utah Department of Commerce, which houses DOPL. She said in a statement that licensed professionals who engage in sexual misconduct violate not just their clients’ trust, but the public’s confidence in their profession.
“These heinous acts inflict profound harm to victims and damage the reputations of entire industries,” she said. “This task force is our unequivocal declaration: Utah will hold licensed professionals accountable to protect our communities and the integrity of state-regulated industries.”