Jaime Campos sentenced to prison for sexually abusing teen that resulted in pregnancy

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    IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (eastidahonews.com) — A local man was sentenced Tuesday afternoon after pleading guilty to sexual battery of a minor.

Jaime Campos, 28, was initially charged, according to court records, with two felony counts of enticing a child through the internet, but those charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

In exchange for a guilty plea, the state amended the charges to a single felony sexual battery of a minor. According to the agreement, the state and the defense also agreed to recommend a sentence of two years in prison, with an indeterminate amount of time to be determined at sentencing.

This agreement was non-binding, and District Judge Dane Watkins Jr. decided not to follow it.

He said that while the court does its best to follow these negotiated settlements, defendants often benefit from the changes to the charges.

“I would say, had that not taken place, sir, given the facts of this case, I would have placed you on an indeterminate period of life,” Watkins said.

However, Watkins acknowledged that per the statute of the charge, he could only give a maximum sentence of 25 years.

Watkins said that while the parties negotiated the two-year prison agreement, he would not follow that suggestion.

Instead, he sentenced Campos to a minimum five-year prison sentence with an indeterminate term of 20 years to reach the maximum amount possible.

“I am not comfortable in going as low as the two,” Watkins said.

Campos was also granted some time served, as he has been in jail since 2022.

A no-contact order was extended for 20 years between the victim, her family, and the victim’s child.

Court Records According to court documents, the female victim, who was 15 at the time, had gone to the Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Center to report two incidents.

The incidents occurred between January and July 2022 when Campos was 25 years old.

The document reported Campos had been sleeping in her room until she was placed into foster care in March 2022.

Before she was taken into foster care, the first sexual interaction occurred in her bedroom. The second was after she was placed into foster care, where Campos and she had sex in an LDS church parking lot in Ammon.

The report states family members were spoken to by authorities and learned of two other incidents between the victim and Campos.

The report states the sexual abuse resulted in a pregnancy.

Sentencing During sentencing, the victim and her mother gave victim impact statements detailing how these incidents have changed their lives.

The victim detailed the incidents with Campos and the trauma she experienced living her life after the abuse.

The mother asked Watkins to take a mother’s perspective before sentencing Campos. She said she watched her daughter become an adult while dealing with this experience.

Campos’s attorney, Josh Edward Cummings, told the court his client was also the victim of sexual abuse when he was younger, but since going to jail, he has made an effort to become better.

Cummings asked Watkins to consider that Campos had been in jail for two years prior to the sentencing and to recognize his time spent in confinement.

Campos made a statement acknowledging that his childhood life was unstructured and that he had a problem lying and manipulating others.

“This is haunting me for a long time… I lost everything because of my actions. I lost my wife, I lost my kids, I lost my family… I lost everything in my life, all because of my actions and what I’ve done,” Campos said.

He told the court he is not making excuses for what he did but that he wants to own up to the actions and the consequences he’s caused.

“I didn’t want to live the way I was living before, and I decided that I wasn’t going to squander my time while incarcerated,” Campos said.

Campos said he’d gotten treatment and agreed with his attorney that two years was a proper sentence. He said he’d seek treatment outside of jail.

“I am very sorry for my actions,” Campos said.

After Campos’s statement, Watkins spoke to him about the four objectives of criminal punishment, but that the most important one is the protection of society.

“Let me speak directly, however, to the way in which you affected the victim of this case. You altered her life forever,” Watkins said.

Watkins said the reason these laws and statutes exist is to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Referring to the victim being a child and Campos being a 25-year-old adult.

He understood that Campos was abused as a child but said the court has to question did he know what he did was wrong. Watkins told him he believed someone as old as Campos should have known how wrong it was to have sexual interaction with a child.

Watkins lauded the victim who gave her statement to the court and remained strong through this traumatic experience.

“I hope that the pain and anguish associated with all of this can be mitigated and hopefully removed entirely in (your) life,” Watkins said.

Watkins recognized Campos’s effort to change and seek treatment while in jail. He told Campos to continue that fight and that change is possible.

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