PROVO, Utah (AP) – A Utah couple accused of forcing an 11-year-old girl into a polygamous marriage with her stepfather will be extradited to Arizona.
Stanley Ernest Rimer, 71, Orem, and Janice Starr Rimer, 52, American Fork, signed extradition papers Wednesday.
They have been charged in Maricopa County, Ariz., with molestation of a child and sexual conduct with a minor.
The girl was Janice Rimer’s daughter, who prosecutors said was forced to marry Stanley Rimer in an unofficial ceremony in 1994 when she was 11.
The girl lived with her mother and stepfather in Phoenix, Peoria and Sunrise when the abuse is said to have occurred.
The couple was arrested by Brigham Young University police on March 24 and have been held in the Utah County Jail since then. BYU police assisted the Phoenix Police Department in the case because the alleged victim lived for a short time in BYU’s on-campus housing with a relative, said Carrie Jenkins, BYU spokeswoman. The alleged victim was not a student.
Bill FitzGerald, spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, did not know when the couple would be transferred to Arizona.
According to court records, the alleged victim, now 21, got protective orders against her mother and stepfather in February in Provo’s 4th District Court. Janice and Stanley Rimer can’t have any direct or indirect contact with her or know where she is living.
The woman wrote in her application for the protective orders that she fled the polygamous marriage to Stanley Rimer on Dec. 22, 2003. She stated that she’s afraid of both of them, but fears her mother more than her stepfather. She tried to run away from them on numerous occasions, but was always returned to her mother, she said in court documents.
She stated that her mother forced her to become Stanley Rimer’s third wife on April 18, 1994, when she was 11. Janice Rimer is his second wife. The young woman said she was forced to have sex with him an average of six to seven times per week after that, sometimes with her mother present.
In addition to the sexual abuse, the woman stated that Stanley and Janice Rimer physically and emotionally abused her. She stated that they would beat her, sometimes one after the other.
