Salt Lake man, 78, teen kidnapped, sexually assaulted walking home from school

SALT LAKE CITY – A 78-year-old Salt Lake man faces seven criminal charges accusing him of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a teenage girl who was walking home from school.

Tevita Hoihoi Mounga was charged Tuesday in 3rd District Court with aggravated kidnapping, two counts of forcible sodomy, three counts of object rape and aggravated sexual assault, all first-degree felonies; and damaging a cell phone, a class B misdemeanor.

On March 6, a 16-year-old girl was walking home from school carrying cupcakes near 500 North and 1000 West when police said Mounga, whom the teen did not know, ran into stopped next to her in his truck.

Mounga apparently pointed at the cupcakes. The teen couldn't hear what he was saying, “so she opened the vehicle door.” That's when “Mounga grabbed her and drove away,” according to charging documents.

When the girl's phone started ringing, Mounga took it and threw it out the window, police said. He then drove the girl to a parking lot near the airport and sexually assaulted her, according to the charges.

The teen was eventually able to push Mounga away, get out of his truck and run away, according to investigators.

Using surveillance video, Salt Lake Police detectives were able to identify Mounga as a possible suspect and arrested him Friday. In their arrest affidavit, police also noted that on May 10 and 22, officers received additional reports of a man in a truck trying to “lure young girls.”

“In both cases, witnesses were able to take photographs of the suspect vehicle and its license plate. The license plate came back to a white Ford F-150 registered to…Tevita Mounga,” a police booking affidavit states.