An intoxicated registered sex offender recently released from prison in Iowa and enroute to California was arrested in Vernal on Wednesday for a sexual assault that allegedly took place on the Greyhound bus he was traveling on. According to the arresting officer’s Affidavit of Probable Cause, the manager of the KFC restaurant in Vernal called police after the bus driver reported that a man on the bus had a bag of alcohol and had inappropriately touched a female passenger. The female passenger was sitting inside KFC and shared with police that she kept moving away from the man on the bus and repeatedly told him she was married but he kept following her and eventually grabbed her breasts and molested her. The man exposed himself and asked for oral sex but she refused and he then tried to kiss her. She also reported that the man was drinking an alcoholic beverage out of a water bottle. The woman showed the officers texts she had sent her husband about the assault where she stated that the man was drunk and she was scared. The text was sent as they were traveling in Vernal just before stopping at the KFC. Officers located the male suspect on the bus and he consented to get off the bus to speak with police. He initially denied having any alcohol. Officers could smell it on his person and he then admitted to having a bottle of vodka in his bag. He denied any assault took place and claimed instead that the woman had been flirting with him. He was identified as 64-year-old Gregory Edward Kehl, a convicted sex offender for prior sexual batteries committed in Iowa. His recent prison term was for a conviction involving the molestation of an adult female and sexual battery. Kehl consented to a portable breath test which tested positive for alcohol. He was arrested for Object Rape, Lewdness, Intoxication, and Sexual Battery. He was booked into Uintah County Jail with an order to hold with bail in the amount of $107,170 dollars.
