A man who pleaded guilty to bigamy has been sentenced to one year in the Teton County Jail.
Michael R. Carter, 37, who maintained residences in Payson, Utah, as well as Pocatello, Idaho, pleaded guilty to one count of bigamy on Jan. 31 in state district court.He was sentenced last week to three to five years in the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins, but Judge D. Terry Rogers, citing crowded conditions, imposed a split sentence. It means Carter will serve a year in the county jail, followed by two years of probation.
Carter married Beth Bowers of Orem in May 1988, records show. In July 1990, still married to Bowers, he married Lori Pierce of Pocatello in Jackson, deputy prosecutor Jim Radda said.
"I was lied to, betrayed, cheated on," Bowers said. "I was used for a source of money, used for a place to sleep, used for sex."
Bowers said Carter, a 17-year employee of Union Pacific Railroad, owed her $16,000 in alimony, ordered after she learned of Carter's second wife and was granted an annulment.
Bowers said she also had learned that Carter was married to a third woman at the time she married him. That marriage ended in divorce before Bowers learned of it, she said.
Pierce also said she felt humiliated. "I have been raped by this man, not only physically but emotionally."