What Is a Position of Trust in a Sex Crime Case? ARS 13-1401

What Is a “Position of Trust” in an Arizona Sex Crime Case?

A “position of trust” is a specific, statutorily defined relationship between an adult and a minor that transforms how Arizona charges and punishes sex offenses involving 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds. Defined in A.R.S. § 13-1401, it does two devastating things to a defense: it eliminates consent as a defense entirely, and it elevates the charge — in a sexual conduct case, from a Class 6 felony all the way to a Class 2 felony with no probation. Whether the State can actually prove the relationship fits the statutory list is often the single most important fight in the case.

Who Counts: The Statutory List

The statute is a list, not a vibe — a person is in a position of trust only if they are or were one of the following to the minor:

• Family: the minor’s parent, stepparent, grandparent, adoptive parent, legal guardian, aunt, uncle, or foster parent — or a relative by blood or marriage within the third degree who is at least ten years older;
• School: the minor’s teacher, or any school employee or volunteer at the minor’s school who is eighteen or older;
• Sports and activities: the minor’s coach or instructor, whether paid or volunteer;
• Religion: the minor’s clergyman or priest, or any adult who worked or volunteered for a religious organization hosting events the minor attended;
• The household: anyone in a sexual or romantic relationship with the minor’s parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, guardian, foster parent, stepparent, step-grandparent, or sibling — the “mom’s boyfriend” provision;
• Work: the minor’s employer; and
• Care settings: employees of a group home or residential treatment facility where the minor lives or lived.

Effect One: Consent Stops Being a Defense

Arizona’s age of consent is eighteen, but for 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds the law builds in limited protections for defendants — most notably the close-in-age (Romeo and Juliet) defense and the reasonable mistake-of-age defense in A.R.S. § 13-1407. A position of trust changes that calculus. Under A.R.S. § 13-1404(B), it is not a defense to a sexual abuse charge that a 15-, 16-, or 17-year-old consented, if the defendant was in a position of trust. The relationship itself, in the law’s eyes, makes the consent legally meaningless.

Effect Two: The Charge Class Explodes

The starker consequence lives in A.R.S. § 13-1405, sexual conduct with a minor. For a minor who is at least fifteen, the offense is ordinarily a Class 6 felony — Arizona’s lowest — or a Class 4 if the defendant is over 21 and more than five years older. But if the defendant is or was in a position of trust, the same conduct becomes a Class 2 felony, and the statute strips eligibility for suspension of sentence, probation, pardon, or release until the sentence is served. The difference between a probation-eligible Class 6 and a mandatory-prison Class 2 — on identical facts — is the trust designation.

The designation also shapes sexual abuse charges under 13-1404 and ripples through registration exposure, plea posture, and how aggressively prosecutors file. For the full penalty picture, see our guide to sexual conduct with a minor penalties.

Who Actually Gets Charged With This

These are the cases defense attorneys commonly see filed with a trust allegation in Maricopa County: teachers and school staff, club and high school coaches, youth-group leaders and clergy, stepparents and a parent’s partner, and workplace managers of teenage employees. Because several of those categories overlap with professional licensing, a trust allegation usually arrives with a second crisis attached — a teaching-certificate, coaching, or professional-board investigation running parallel to the criminal case. Our guides for teachers accused of misconduct cover that collision in detail.

Where These Cases Are Fought

• Does the relationship actually fit the list? The State must prove a listed role, not a generic mentor or authority figure. Tutors hired privately, friends-of-family, and adults at a different school than the minor’s raise genuine statutory questions.
• Timing. “Is or was” reaches the past, but the role still has to have existed as defined — and when the role ended and what it actually involved are factual fights.
• The underlying allegation itself. A trust designation multiplies a charge; it does not prove one. Everything a sex-crime defense involves — the forensic interviews, the digital record, delayed disclosure, motive to fabricate — still decides whether any offense occurred at all.
• Mistake of age, where it survives. The 13-1407(B) defense turns on what the defendant knew or reasonably could have known — and its interaction with a trust allegation is technical and case-specific.
• Charging negotiation. Because the trust element alone separates a Class 6 from a Class 2, contesting it is frequently the highest-leverage negotiation in the case.

How Tamou Law Group Defends Position-of-Trust Cases

We defend these cases on two tracks at once: the underlying allegation, with full forensic-interview and digital-evidence scrutiny, and the trust element itself, because the State routinely stretches the statutory list past what it says. Removing the trust designation from a case restores the consent defense and probation eligibility, which is why we treat it as an element to be defeated, not a label to be accepted. Where a client holds a license or certificate, we coordinate the board defense from day one.

Related reading: our position of trust defense page, Arizona’s age of consent, and our Scottsdale sex crimes lawyer page. Call 623-321-4699, 24/7.