ST. GEORGE — Ever since he was accused of using his pickup truck in an assaultive manner in May 2021, Scott Nielson has staunchly maintained his innocence.
Nielson, a businessman known for recreational vehicle dealerships and resort projects in Southern Utah, told St. George News that he knew from the moment the criminal case was filed against him that he would fight the charges, a position that remained unchanged for the 18 months it took to bring the case to trial.
“I knew I was innocent,” he said, adding that the allegations levied against him were “completely false.”
At the time of his arrest on an aggravated assault charge, Nielson had recently built a house in the Little Valley area of St. George. He, along with other neighbors, had been submitting complaints to the St. George Police Department about dirt-bike riders in the area engaging in dangerous riding behavior and disrupting the neighborhood’s peace.
During the incident leading to his arrest, Nielson said he followed a pair of juveniles on motorcycles in an effort to inform their parents of the youths’ disruptive behavior. Days later, police showed up at his residence, and he was taken away in handcuffs. Nielson had been accused of attempting to back his pickup truck into the riders.
Following a two-day trial in August, a jury agreed with Nielson’s claims of innocence, finding him not guilty of the assault charge after witnesses offered conflicting testimony and varying accounts about the incident that changed over the course of time.
The initial report
The case was filed May 25, 2021, after Nielson was arrested and booked into jail facing aggravated assault and reckless driving charges based on the allegations of a conflict with the dirt-bikers.
The probable cause statement filed at the time of Nielson’s arrest stated the incident occurred May 18, 2021, and was initially reported as a harassment call. Police summarized the events based on three accounts provided by one witness and the two motorcycle riders. However, all three of their accounts were called into question during a preliminary hearing held five months after the arrest, and their testimony changed again during trial.
In the initial report, the juvenile riders told police that the trouble began when they were stopped behind the pickup at the corner of 2000 South and 2580 East when “the truck went into reverse back toward the two motorcycle riders” and one of the riders was “able to turn around and the other pulled toward the curb as the truck went by.” The rider who was stopped by the curb in front of the pickup told police Nielson “came back forward, toward him again,” which is when he sped away with the truck following behind “at a high rate of speed.”
A witness at the scene told police he saw the truck back up toward the two riders and then follow at a high rate of speed, adding that the truck’s tires were spinning as it went around the turn. The witness then lost sight of the truck and motorcycle by the time they turned at the end of 2580 East.
Four days after the initial report was filed, officers spoke to Nielson at his home. He denied putting his truck in reverse, but he did tell officers that he followed the dirt bikes to see where the riders lived so he could talk to their parents. In the report, Nielson told officers one of the riders stopped and he “talked to the rider and told him he should not be doing that.”
Discrepancies from testimony on the witness stand
Many of the details that prompted the charges, including the route the vehicles took, the color of the truck’s tail lights and the distance between the vehicles, became problematic when the parties took the stand during the preliminary hearing held Oct. 26, 2021, five months after the case was filed, when inconsistencies surfaced during cross examination by the defense.
In the original police report filed in May, each of the riders reported seeing red tail lights on Nielson’s truck as he was allegedly backing up towards them — a point that each of the teens reiterated in their testimony during the preliminary hearing. The red tail lights on Nielson’s Ford truck indicated he was actually stopped at the time. If it had been backing up, the truck’s clear tail lights would have automatically activated when it was put in reverse.
The other witness testified that on the evening in question, he was stopped at a stop sign on 2580 East, which he said was “a block away,” when he saw the pickup truck back up toward the two riders and then follow at a high rate of speed, causing the truck’s tires to spin as it continued around the corner.
During cross examination, Nielson’s defense attorney, Douglas Terry, went over the witness’s initial statement from the night in question and asked him to tell the court where he was stopped when he reportedly saw the interaction between the defendant and the youths.
When the witness said he was stopped on the corner of 2580 East and Rasmussen Drive, Terry said that was not just a “block away” but was 200 yards away, calling into question the witness’s ability to have seen what he told officers he witnessed that night.
The witness said that shortly after the incident, he stopped and asked one of the riders, “what happened out there?” — referring to the intersection. The defense contended that this inquiry provided the witness with the details that were later included in the police report.
The court transcript indicates that by the time the witness left the stand, he said he wasn’t sure what he had seen that day.
The next issue concerned the allegations that a “high-speed chase” ensued after leaving the intersection. The officer, both riders and the witness provided similar testimony regarding the chase that purportedly ensued after the initial incident at the intersection.
As to the speed, one of the riders was asked during cross examination how he determined how fast he was going when Nielson was reportedly chasing him. The youth said he wasn’t looking at the speedometer at the time but later looked up the bike’s specs online and found it had a maximum speed of 40 mph, which is what he said he told police.
The prosecution referred to a doorbell camera located along the travel route that captured a portion of the alleged chase. The officer testified the footage revealed that Nielson’s truck was following 25 feet behind the bike, which was interpreted to mean the pickup was traveling at a high rate of speed.
However, the video was never analyzed to determine how fast either vehicle was traveling, nor did officers check the route the two vehicles reportedly took to see if there were any skid marks, nor did they check the area for any other evidence to support that a high-speed chase occurred.
Police testimony revealed that the case for a “high-speed chase” was based solely on the doorbell video and each of the juvenile riders’ accounts.
Trial reveals further inconsistencies
During the trial in August, the riders, who originally testified in the preliminary hearing five months earlier that they were certain the tail lights were red when Nielson’s pickup truck was backing up, took the stand and each testified that they were not paying attention to the color of the tail lights.
The witness also took the stand and testified that he was able to see the pickup truck back up toward the riders and saw the tail lights light up as the pickup was put in reverse, adding that he followed the pickup truck and the rider until he lost sight of them.
During cross examination, Terry addressed the distance involved from where the witness was stopped, which was roughly the length of two football fields from the intersection. When the witness was questioned further, he said “he didn’t know what was going on” in the intersection that day.
An expert witness for the defense testified that the witness’s ability to see would have been impacted by two factors – illumination and distance. His analysis revealed that from where the witness was stopped, he would have been too far away to discern whether the brake lights, or the backup lights, were illuminated on the pickup truck.
When the officer took the stand, he went over the encounter with Nielson on the night of the defendant’s arrest. The officer said the conversation started with Nielson asking about the multiple reports he had called into the St. George Police Department prior to the incident reported in May involving underaged juveniles riding on public streets, including the two juvenile riders that were parties in the criminal case.
The officer said the department had received several reports from the Little Valley area involving underage dirt-bike riders, adding that many of those reports were not followed up on due to the fact that many of the calls came in during high-traffic times when officers were responding to other calls. When they did respond, the officer said they did not find any motorcycles in the area.
Terry asked the officer if any photographs were taken of the corner where Nielson was reported to have driven at a high rate of speed, which likely would have left visible skid marks. The officer said no photos of those areas were taken during the investigation. The state then referenced the doorbell camera located along the travel route that captured a portion of the alleged chase that had undergone an analysis since the preliminary hearing.
A second officer that analyzed the doorbell camera video took the stand and said the findings indicated that the motorcycle was traveling 26 mph when it passed by the camera, while the pickup was going 37 mph, which the prosecutor said was “significantly faster than the motorcycle.”
During cross examination, it was revealed that authorities used two police patrol vehicles to conduct the test, which the defense stated did not mirror the conditions present at the time. Even with the differing conditions, Terry said, what the photos did show was that the truck was more than three car lengths behind the bike when the pair passed by.
At the close of the trial Aug. 9, the jury returned with a verdict acquitting Nielson of the aggravated assault charge. A related moving violation conviction was appealed, and the charge was later reduced to an infraction.
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