An unidentified 18 year-old Utah man was in big trouble last year for statutorily raping a 13 year-old girl, looking at 25 to life in the big boy house and a hardass prosecutor who wouldn’t budge on a plea deal. Then suddenly some phone calls were made, a bill was signed, and the lad was sentenced to a week of time served and wouldn’t have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

What happened? Funny story. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the man, let’s call him Brigham, is related to Republican state Senate President J Stuart Adams, who had gotten the call from Brigham’s defense attorney Cara Tangaro with an idea: Just a tiny little change to an existing law that stipulates that 17 year-olds who have sex with 13 year-olds are subject to a third-degree felony charge of unlawful sexual activity, a wide gap from the first-degree child rape charge and lifetime sentence to the sex offender list Brigham had faced. Tangaro, being the smart lawyer she is, sold Adams on amending the law to make 18 year-olds who are enrolled as high school students at the time of the offense to be charged as the third-degree felony reserved for 17 year-olds.

Adams then in turn got one of his members to sponsor the bill and presto! “You saw the legislative change,” Tangaro told the judge at sentencing two months later. “We all agree that’s not retroactive, but the government did change their offer based on that,” before Brigham walked out a free man.

The state Senate President sees it differently, telling the Tribune that the case stemmed from “a serious mistake,” but he was “surprised by the severity of the charges” filed against Brigham. “Some have suggested this change was made to benefit the case I was made aware of involving the high school senior. That is simply not true,” he said. “While the sponsor of [the bill] was aware of the case, I did not request the legislation and did not intervene or give input on the drafting of the bill.”

Lying is wrong. Mormons who lie go to Hell, and one way worse than normal Hell, which is basically like Disney World on a really hot but also extremely crowded day and everyone’s complaining constantly while waiting in line for boring rides or saying “It’s hot as Hell here! Oh wait…” and expecting you to laugh at that same joke over and over again. Mormon Hell is the actual fiery Hell.

National Zero will not speculate on whether adult Mormons who have sex with 13 year-old girls go to Mormon Hell because it’s not clear whether that’s even a sin and might even be kind of encou-

Just going to leave it there. No need to upset any Mormons. How about that Manti Teo? Cool dude.