A former Provo resident who pleaded guilty in May to sexual abuse of a child has been sentenced to a year in the Utah County Jail and ordered to undergo an 18-month program at the Ogden Community Correctional Center.
Fourth District Judge George E. Ballif ordered the jail time after giving the defendant, John Rick Carpenter, a suspended prison sentence of one to 15 years and placing him on probation for two years.In addition to ordering jail time and treatment, Ballif fined Carpenter $1,562.50. The judge also ordered the defendant to pay counseling costs for his victims, and he refused to give him credit for the past three months he has spent in prison undergoing a diagnostic evaluation.
Deputy County Attorney Jim Taylor told the court, "You can't measure the grief these little girls and their parents have gone through. This is a heinous, serious offense that has caused substantial suffering that cannot be rectified."
Carpenter, 25, was charged in connection with the sexual abuse of two 8-year-old girls from Orem and Provo in November 1987. He pleaded not guilty to two counts of aggravated child sexual abuse, but in an agreement with prosecutors later pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of child sexual abuse, a second-degree felony.