Office of the Utah Attorney General Secures Conviction of a Man for Felony Child Rape

On September 3, 2025, William Piol Makuei was convicted of first-degree felony child rape by a jury in Third District Court. Prosecutors from the Office of the Utah Attorney General (OAG) investigated and prosecuted the case.

Makuei is scheduled to be sentenced on October 16, 2025. He is expected to face a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years, with the possibility of life in prison.

Special agents from the OAG’s Strategic Enforcement to Combat Unlawful Racketeering and Exploitation (SECURE) Task Force received a report in 2016 from a medical provider about a 14-year-old girl who had been a victim of sexual assault in 2015, when she was 13. During the investigation, the girl reported that she was sexually assaulted by a man known to her as “William.”

DNA testing identified the perpetrator as Makuei, who was 50 years old at the time of the sexual assault. Makuei, a refugee, had met the child victim, also a refugee, in the local refugee community. In 2017, Makuei was arrested and charged with felony child rape.

After lengthy legal proceedings and multiple attempts by Makuei to delay the trial, the September 2025 trial lasted one day and ended with Makuei’s conviction.

Assistant attorneys general Kaytlin Beckett and Emma Bykerk prosecuted the case.

The OAG has no further comment.