A man has been charged in Duchesne County’s 8th District Court with repeated lewd acts involving children in Duchesne County. 55-year-old Robert Vincent Zickella was charged last week with three counts of 3rd Degree Felony Lewdness (With Prior Offense) Involving a Child for an incident on April 19th. He was also charged with two counts of Class A Misdemeanor Lewdness Involving a Child and another count of Misdemeanor Lewdness in March for events that took place in Duchesne County on March 5th. According to the Affidavit of Probable Cause filed in March, a Sheriff’s deputy responded to a call on March 5th of a nude man standing at a window inside a residence involved in a lewd act upon himself. When the deputy arrived he was met by a mental health worker responsible for the man in question who told the deputy she has been unable to get Zickella to cease his activity and that Zickella had told her he wanted to go back to jail so he could be put back in a mental health hospital. She stated that Zickella does have “some mental illness” but has been deemed “high functioning enough” to live outside the hospital with supervision. In this incident, Zickella had been seen in the window by a woman and her two young children. According to the Probable Cause Statement, Zickella told the deputy he might expose himself to more people although he said he knew it was wrong to expose himself to children. He was arrested and booked into Duchesne County Jail. Court hearing minutes from March 16th state that a competency evaluation of Zickella was ordered and the court authorized his release to move from the Duchesne County Jail to reside and remain in services at North Eastern Services with an order to follow the directions of the facility’s director. According to the Affidavit of Probable Cause filed in April, Zickella exposed himself to three children under the age of 13 from the window of the North Eastern Services apartment and he told the deputy he had done the same thing to other kids earlier that day who were on four wheelers. Zickella told the deputy he had flashed the kids “so that North Eastern Services would move him to the state hospital because he does not like it here.” He was arrested and transported to the Duchesne County Jail. Zickella’s competency review hearing is scheduled for Monday, April 27th. Zickella has a long criminal history that includes charges of Forcible Sexual Abuse and Lewdness in other Utah court districts that were dismissed.
