They're Accused "Of Not Only Ritualistically Abusing Children, But Of Eating Them"

But not before a rousing game of "Hide the Wienie"

Do you have a thing for molesting and eating children? Well, Cowboy, there might be a place for you in the Utah County Attorney’s Office.

Things are getting a little weird in Utah County, and it sounds as if there’s some score-settling going on here. If you’re a Republican sheriff and you want to take out an adversary you think is too progressive? Well, accusing that person of eating and molesting children is undoubtedly starting with the nuclear option, but it saves time, no?

[T]he Utah County Sheriff's office announced their reinvestigation into a supposed child sex trafficking ring they claim was involved in "ritualistic child sex abuse" between the years of 1990-2010, asking victims and those with knowledge of the crimes to come forward "so that they can be offered all the assistance possible."

Yeah, tell us where the bad man touched you or slathered you with BBQ sauce and bit you…30 years ago. Not to downplay legitimately criminal activity, but this smells like “V” for “vendetta.

Following the Utah County Sheriff's press release, Utah County Attorney David Leavitt called for Sheriff Smith to resign and for the Sheriff's Department itself to be investigated, due to the outlandish nature of the so-called investigation. Leavitt also noted that he and his wife were cited in the official "report" on the investigation, which accused them of not only ritualistically abusing children, but of eating them.

“I am calling upon Sheriff Mike Smith to open his office to an outside investigation,” Leavitt said in a statement, “where outside, independent investigators are able to investigate and confirm or deny that documents from a debunked investigation from more than a decade ago were or were not used for political purposes in a Utah County Attorney’s race.”

“The allegation that I am asserting is that the sheriff’s office is using its position for political gain and accusing them of abusing and cannibalizing and murdering children. And no, I will not step aside.”

Leavitt is up for re-election and is seriously unpopular with the Utah County Sheriff’s office for being a “progressive” prosecutor. By “progressive,” the sheriff’s department hates that Leavitt looks for opportunities other than putting people behind bars.

One of his first actions as county attorney was to establish a pre-filing diversion program, which allow those accused of non-violent minor crimes to enter into an agreement with his office to "complete community service, life classes or drug treatment" in exchange for charges not being filed against them, which — despite producing results — deeply upset police and Republican politicians in the state who don't care so much about what is effective as they do about the sheer joy of sending people to prison for minor infractions. Leavitt has also established a Conviction Integrity Unit to investigate wrongful convictions, which can't have made them too happy either.

In other words, police and Republican politicians were deeply ensconced in their “let’s just do the bare minimum to get by” minds. So when Leavitt showed up, it was “time to do your @!#$&^% job!”

Still, when what REALLY gets your rocks off is sending people to prison, Leavitt’s approach must have ruffled more than a few feathers, something he undoubtedly he recognized early on.

Of course, Republican politicians in Utah County didn’t have to dig too far into the GOP Book of Dirty Tricks and Character Assassination. That’s the one where you never have to prove that anyone’s guilty of a crime. You just have to create a reasonable suspicion that the person in question isn’t necessarily NOT guilty of the heinous crime(s) being alleged.

For his part, Sheriff Mike Smith is continuing to pretend that this is a very legitimate investigation and he is just really concerned for all of the children who were abused in these evil Satanic rituals that definitely happened. Smith also says he never said anything about cannibalism or about David Leavitt and his wife.

“Sure, we haven’t been able to charge Mr. Leavitt with sodomizing, roasting, and eating children yet, but we don’t know that he ISN’T guilty….”

And so the game continues. No one is likely to ever be charged, and yet the character assassination will continue right up to Election Day, when it will all magically stop and disappear.

Some might ask what the problem is with this investigation, or with putting the call out for victims of this alleged child sex trafficking ring. Because hey! If it's not a thing, then no one has anything to worry about. But we've seen this movie before (literally, because again, there are several documentaries about it) and what ends up happening each time is that people come out of the woodwork making bizarre and impossible claims and that no matter how bizarre and impossible they seem, people's lives get ruined every time. Whether because they are sent to prison for decades for crimes they didn't commit, or because they have to live the rest of their lives under suspicion of something they didn't do. Or even because they were convinced by a psychologist that something horrible happened to them when it didn't.

The American Right has learned a terrifying lesson from the whole QAnon/Pizzagate thing — and that is that they can reap political success and get whatever they want simply by accusing people of child molestation and/or cannibalism, without the inconvenience of ever having to provide evidence of any kind. They did it with LGBTQ+ teachers and now they're doing it with progressive prosecutors. That is what is going on here, and it's not going to end well.

So David Leavitt and his wife will live under a cloud of suspicion for the next five months or so. There will be whisper campaigns about cannibalism (where DID they dispose of the remains of young Johnny Smith after they finishing consuming him?) and graphic sexual encounters of the most lurid kind with children.

Republicans may even produce “victims” with “reclaimed” memories of Mrs. Leavitt playing “Hide the Wienie” with them after tee-ball games in the late ‘90s. The community will be shocked, until it’s proven after the election that such “memories” were made up and paid for by Republicans. In the meantime, David Leavitt will almost certainly have lost his re-election bid and the locals will have run the Leavitts out of town under threat of being tarred and feathered.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on the Satanic rituals. You can’t even imagine what those evil damned lascivious Progressives are capable of. They’ll turn your eight-year-old into an over-sexed, drug-addled, Satan-worshipping, clothing-optional, amoral nightmare before you can say “Hail Satan!”

Don’t say you weren’t warned, eh?

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