PROVO — A Provo woman was sentenced Wednesday to two prison terms after entering a no-contest plea to child abuse charges.
Shelly Huynh entered the plea in 4th District Court in Provo as part of a negotiated deal with the Utah County Attorney's office.
Huynh spent nearly two hours reviewing the offered deal — two class A misdemeanor counts of child physical abuse — with her attorney before accepting it at a hearing in a Provo courtroom.
Judge Claudia Laycock sentenced Huynh to serve one year in prison for each count. The state agreed to allow the sentences to run concurrently with two zero- to five-year sentences Huynh is serving in Utah State Prison for other unrelated crimes.
"(Huynh) was just concerned that everyone be aware that the abuse that occurred to the children was not because she did anything to abuse them, but she did not leave (an) abusive relationship," Gale said after the hearing.
He said Huynh is satisfied with her plea and her sentence.
Huynh's no-contest plea comes after she flip-flopped on a previous decision to strike a deal with prosecutors in exchange for a guilty plea on May 17.
Deputy Utah County Attorney Mariane O'Bryant said it did not make a difference to her whether Huynh pleaded guilty or no contest because the sentence is the same.
She also said that even though the sentences technically did not add additional time onto Huynh's prison sentence because they are running concurrently, it gives the Board of Pardons more information when considering her parole.
"It gives the opportunity to the kids to have the Board of Pardons know their story," O'Bryant said.
A few family members of Huynh and the victims were at the hearing and said they are relieved that the process if finally over.
Huynh agreed in her signed statement to the judge that on two occasions between January 1998 and March 2000, she "negligently committed to be inflicted on a child serious physical injury."
She and ex-husband Chay Huynh were both originally accused of using such bizarre methods of discipline as twisting their boys' genitals with pliers, yanking healthy teeth from their mouths and locking them in the basement without food or water.
Chay Huynh pleaded guilty on Feb. 10 to misdemeanor child abuse. He received credit for time served in Utah County Jail during court proceedings and was released the day of his plea.
O'Bryant said the boys, who were taken into state custody, are in stable homes.
E-mail: shelps@desnews.com