SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — A former Utah state employee has signed a plea deal in connection to yanking down a teenager’s miniskirt in a St. George restaurant, an incident that made national headlines due to a viral TikTok video.
Ida Ann Lorzeno, 49, of Santa Clara, pleaded “no contest” to a single misdemeanor count of sexual battery, court documents filed in Washington County show. While Judge Jay Winward has yet to officially sign off on the deal, he didn’t signal any objection to it Tuesday while in court.
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Under the agreement — which both Lorenzo and her attorney signed — her plea will be held in abeyance for a year, so long as Lorenzo doesn’t break the law, doesn’t contact the victim, and agrees to undergo a mental health evaluation.
If Lorenzo complies with the terms, the case will be dismissed. However, if she fails, a warrant could be issued, her guilty plea will be accepted, and she could face a maximum penalty of 180 days in jail.
Per the court documents, Lorenzo pleaded no contest to “knowingly and intentionally touch[ing] the buttocks of another person under the circumstances she should have known would cause affront or alarm.”
The incident happened on April 20 at Sakura Japanese Steakhouse in St. George. Lorenzo told investigators that the teenager’s buttocks and vagina were exposed to people sitting in the lobby, including children. In her interviews with police, Lorenzo said she felt compelled to pull down the teen’s skirt to cover her exposed body.
“Everyone behind me applauded,” she told police in a phone call.
In the immediate aftermath, the teenager’s friends recorded their interactions with Lorenzo. In one video, which amassed nearly 15 million views on TikTok, Lorenzo identified herself as a state employee and threatened to call Child Protective Services on the teenager.
The TikTok video labeled Lorenzo as a “Karen,” a slang term for a privileged middle-aged woman, and Lorzeno initially contacted police over concerns about online harassment.
But in the days that followed, the teenager also contacted police, telling investigators that Lorenzo came up to her unannounced, touched her buttocks with her bare hands, and pulled her skirt down. The 19-year-old told police she felt violated, and she disputed that her private parts were ever exposed.
After Lorenzo was arrested and charged with sexual battery, she lost her job with the Utah Attorney General’s Office, where she’d been hired only weeks before as a legal consultant. ABC4.com reached out to Lorenzo’s attorney for a comment, but the station has yet to receive one.
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