David Nephi Johnson, 54, pleaded not guilty to one count of first-degree felony aggravated child abuse in Fourth District Court on Wednesday. Johnson was the chair of the Wasatch County Republican Party at the time of his arrest. 

A criminal trial for Johnson, who was released from jail after meeting the $10,000 bail in February, is set for Nov. 9, 10 and 12. 

Johnson was formally charged on Feb. 10. The aggravated child abuse charge applies when a person intentionally or knowingly inflicts serious injury upon a child, or allows another person to inflict serious injury upon a child. 

According to an affidavit of probable cause from the Heber City Police Department, Johnson allegedly “waterboarded” his teenage daughter. That teen is currently under a protective order, which Fourth District Court Judge Jennifer Mabey proposed in February. 

On Wednesday, Heber City Police Department Detective Anel Maldonado took the witness stand to recount the events surrounding Johnson’s arrest. Prosecutor Lindsay Chervenak questioned Maldonado. Defense attorney Katherine Conyers cross-examined the detective. 

Maldonado, who has worked with the Police Department for seven years, said she was called to investigate the case involving Johnson’s alleged child abuse on Jan. 21. That’s when she met Utah Division of Child and Family Services caseworker Sydney McManus at Wasatch High School. 

McManus and Maldonado then conducted a forensic interview with the teen. She disclosed instances of child abuse, which led to Johnson’s arrest. 

Conyers had no questions for the detective apart from clarifying the spelling of the teen’s name. A statement from the teen was delivered to Mabey and was not read in court. 

Mabey said she found the Wasatch County Attorney’s Office “met its burden” of showing probable cause for the first-degree felony.

Court documents detail the allegations against Johnson, which state that Johnson dunked the teen’s head underwater multiple times in one incident. That occurred after Johnson was allegedly “upset with the victim because she didn’t completely clean her room.”

“She disclosed that David dunked her head under, brought it out, splashed water in her face, then dunked the victim’s head under again. The victim did not know how long the incident lasted from beginning to end,” the court document states.

The teen also described situations involving her siblings. She said there was a similar event years prior, when Johnson allegedly forced her sibling’s head underwater. 

In addition to “waterboarding,” the teen informed the state investigator of a time when Johnson “backhanded” her, leaving bruising. The teen told the investigator that she does not “feel very safe” at home. 

The protective order in place prohibits Johnson from contacting his daughter. The teen is in the care of an older sibling as part of a safety plan set by the Utah Division of Child and Family Services and her parents. Johnson may visit his other children with supervision. 

Since Johnson’s arrest, Republican Party Vice Chair Patty Sprunt has assumed temporary leadership of the party. After Johnson’s arrest in February, Sprunt told The Park Record that there would be no call for Johnson’s resignation.

She encouraged the public to wait until more information was available. That sentiment was echoed in a statement released by the county GOP in February. 

The Republican Party Executive Committee also stated that it remains focused on serving the voters of Wasatch County. The group said its “thoughts are with the Johnson family during a difficult time.”

A first-degree felony is punishable by five years to life in prison and a $10,000 fine.

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When Hideout resident Patrick Hayes, 61, was fatally shot in a road rage incident, the shooting was initially deemed a homicide by Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office officials. After a 48-day investigation, police found the shooter, Greg Kyle DeBoer, 62, who admitted to using lethal force the night of the incident.

DeBoer claimed he pulled his .45 caliber Kimber 1911 out of self-defense, according to court documents. 

Wasatch County Sheriff Jared Rigby said there’s not enough evidence to charge DeBoer with homicide. Because DeBoer admitted to burying the gun he used to shoot Hayes, he faces an obstruction of justice charge, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Hayes’ friends and family, indignant, said it’s not enough. 

Peter Kintner was a friend of Hayes for more than a decade. They met through Hayes’ partner, Sue Ann Kern, and became close over the years. Kintner, outraged that DeBoer is not facing any homicide charges, decided to take matters into his own hands. On Thursday, he started an online petition titled “Justice for Patrick Hayes.”

“It’s one thing to lose a close friend like that, but it’s another thing to lose somebody in that manner,” Kintner said. “I’m a gun owner, and if I were ever in a situation where I had to use deadly force, I would have stayed on the scene. I would have called the police and called an ambulance.”

Kintner said the fact that DeBoer left the scene after shooting Hayes, then later burying the gun, is “telling.” He referred to the surveillance footage recently released that shows the interaction between Hayes and DeBoer the night of the shooting, Sept. 25, 2024. 

“It seems to me that the charges they want to charge DeBoer with basically amount to a slap on the wrist,” Kintner said. 

There were more than 100 signatures on the petition within 24 hours of its launch. By Monday, there were more than 700 signatures. 

“Everyone that’s signing this petition was impacted by Patrick, and we all think that the way they’re handling this case is not fair,” Hayes’ fiancée, Kern, said. “DeBoer needs to be held accountable for his actions.” 

Kintner references a new state law in the petition that passed during the last legislative session. House Bill 30 enforced tougher penalties on deadly road rage incidents. The bill went into effect on July 1 — just one month after two deadly road rage cases in Utah and Davis counties.

The bill made amendments such as modifying the elements of aggravated assault to address the use of a motor vehicle and the requirement of the courts to collect data regarding road rage incidents.

“It is essential to uphold justice and the safety of our community, and to give credibility to the new Utah Law HB30,” the petition reads. “There is a strong belief in our community that Greg Kyle DeBoer has not been held fully accountable for his actions.”

After DeBoer fatally shot Hayes at around 11 p.m. on Sept. 25, no call was made to the police about the shooting until 12 hours later when a passerby saw Hayes lying on the ground. His car, a few feet from Hayes, was still idling with the right blinker flashing. Hayes died that night less than half a mile from his Hideout home. 

Because no call by DeBoer was made, police were unaware of the shooter’s identity. Investigators later received a tip from a local, who said DeBoer used the ammunition forensic specialists uncovered — a .45 Winchester Black Talon round, which was popular until manufacturing ceased in 2000. 

When DeBoer admitted to shooting Hayes and burying the gun, he also claimed self defense. Sheriff Rigby said that despite the discovery of “minor pieces of evidence,” the footage of the shooting complicated matters, and there is not enough evidence so far to charge DeBoer with homicide.

The footage shows Hayes, followed by DeBoer, arriving at the Ross Creek entrance of Jordanelle State Park. When Hayes exited his car, DeBoer apparently attempted to hit Hayes with his car twice. When Hayes regained his feet after falling, he started talking to DeBoer, using profanity and saying “You want to get out?” DeBoer then shot Hayes in the chest. 

“If the shooter was in self defense, why did he follow Patrick to begin with? Why did he actually pull the trigger, why did he hide the gun?” One petition comment reads.

“Utah, being a law and order state, should stand by its law,” Kintner said, referring to H.B. 30. “If they want this sort of thing to stop, then this particular case is a landmark that shows that this does, in fact, need to be addressed. Patrick Hayes deserves that justice.”

Wasatch County Attorney McKay King, a prosecutor on the DeBoer case, was not available for comment by the time of publication.

The post Locals turn to petitioning for homicide charges in road rage case appeared first on Park Record.

The Summit County sheriff’s deputy who shot and killed former Marine Donald Wayne Ball in November has been investigated by the Wasatch County Attorney’s Office and has returned to service.

The fatal incident took place after the deputy attempted to stop Ball’s car for outstanding arrest warrants issued by Utah’s Fourth District Court.

Rather than stopping, Ball reportedly led the officer on a chase that led him across county lines from Kamas to Bench Creek Road, where he crashed. The Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office reported at the time that Ball then exited the vehicle and walked toward the deputy with “a large blunt object.”

The deputy shot Ball, and he died at the scene. He was 41.

The Summit County Sheriff’s Office referred further questions about the incident to the Wasatch County Attorney’s Office, which conducted the investigation. They had responded to inquiries by press time Friday.

The Sheriff’s Office has declined to identify the sheriff’s deputy.

Ball served three deployments with the 1st battalion, 5th Marines regiment. His platoon leader remembered him as “a Marine’s Marine” and “a big teddy bear.”

After his military career, he worked for private military contractor Blackwater, now known as Academi. In 2007, he was one of several mercenaries who took part in a shooting that killed at least 14 innocent Iraq civilians. While four out of the six men served prison time before being pardoned by President Trump, Ball was not among them.

His lifelong friend and partner Rachelle Rigler said that when he was shot, he was living in the Wasatch Back in a secluded cabin where he didn’t pay his property taxes. 

He decided he no longer believed in government authority, and carried long, blunt metal objects to help him with breathing exercises, she said.

He came into conflict with the law in 2018 when he was arrested for criminal mischief for cutting wires on broadcasting towers, which the arrest affidavit states he believed were being used by the government to track him.

He got help from the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center and The Department of Human Resources before being given a sentence of a fine and time he’d already served.

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