Judge refuses plea terms, gives former school janitor harsher sentence for molesting girl

TERRETON, Idaho — An Idaho 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 at least seven years and up to 20 years 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 at sentencing, which Boyce refused. The plea agreement was nonbinding, 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.”

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 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.”

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.

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.

Read the full story at EastIdahoNews.com.