WEST JORDAN — The attorney for a man who was convicted of helping his friend dump the body of a drug-overdose victim said he intends to appeal the jury's verdict.
Mark Anthony Chernin Jr., 20, faces up to five years in prison after he was convicted Thursday of third-degree felony desecration of a corpse. He is to be sentenced Aug. 29 in 3rd District Court.
Phillip Alan Northcutt, 46, died after ingesting methamphetamine on Aug. 27 in the Sandy home of Lysle Wayne Swenson, 23.
Swenson pleaded guilty in February to desecration of a body and was sentenced to nine months in jail.
It was the second time that Chernin, who claimed that he was forced to help get rid of Northcutt's body, had gone to court because of the case.
In June, a mistrial was declared because a juror saw a newspaper article about a similar case, two teenage boys who failed to call 911 when a friend overdosed on heroin and then dumped the body.
Chernin's attorney, Jeremy Delicino, argued for a mistrial again in the second trial, saying the state failed to provide new information that was not used in the previous trial.
"I think there is strong grounds for an appeal," Delicino said.
In the first case, Swenson testified that he asked his wife to call Chernin after he had tried for nearly 30 minutes to resuscitate Northcutt. Swenson said they put Northcutt's body in the back of Northcutt's car and left the car on a street where police found it two days later.
Swenson said he did not call 911 because he feared losing the parental rights to his children, who had been taken by state welfare workers two days earlier.
But Chernin said he helped because Swenson threatened him with a knife and also had threatened to harm Swenson's wife.