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UTAH STATE PRISON — The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has decided a Duchesne County man should serve his entire prison sentence for the 2009 sexual assault of a teenager who has autism at the Uintah Community Center in Vernal.
The decision means Taggart John Anderton won't be released from prison until March 18, 2024, parole board spokesman Jim Hatch said Tuesday.
The degree of risk Anderton continues to pose to public safety, his minimization of his criminal behavior, his lack of remorse and his failure to complete sex offender treatment while incarcerated were all listed by the parole board as reasons to deny him the privilege of an early release.
"I believe the parole board listened to us," said Marv Peterson, the victim's father. "I'm grateful that the parole board was able to see through (Anderton's) pleas of being the victim in all of this."
Anderton, 55, admitted he was high on methamphetamine when he encountered Peterson's 15-year-old son in the men's bathroom of the center on March 19, 2009. During a parole hearing earlier this month, Anderton continued to maintain that the teen asked to watch him shower, solicited him for sex and performed a sex act on him — a version not supported by the evidence or by witness testimony, according to police.
Uintah County prosecutors charged Anderton with aggravated kidnapping, forcible sodomy, forcible sex abuse, attempted forcible sex abuse, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
The Neola man later pleaded guilty to reduced charges of kidnapping, attempted forcible sex abuse, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was sentenced to serve up to 15 years in prison.
At the March 13 parole hearing, Peterson asked the parole board not to release the man who molested his son and forever changed his family's life.
"That man has an opportunity in prison to rehabilitate," he said. "Our son does not have that option, because he will live with this festering wound for the rest of his life."
Members of Anderton's family also wrote letters to the parole board opposing his release from prison.
"I believe that my brother has abused his body with drugs to the extent that there has been irreparable harm done," Kit Anderton wrote.
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For the second time in four years, Marv Peterson stood before a Utah Board of Pardons and Parole hearing officer and tried to master his emotions."The unanimous feelings of my immediate family members are that, given the chance, he will return to drugs and other deviant behavior, and that these behaviors will accelerate," he wrote.
Peterson said he agrees with that assessment.
"I believe he will offend again. I personally do," he said Tuesday.
Peterson's son, who has the mental capacity of a 7-year-old, hasn't been allowed to live at home for the past four years, due to intervention by the state Division of Child and Family Services and the courts. He lives in a group home five hours away from his family, requires 24-hour supervision and care, and has become obsessed with things of a sexual nature as a result of the abuse.
"We our told son (about the parole hearing)," Peterson said. "He got very angry, very scared, afraid that Taggart was going to come after him.
"Now we're going to tell him the parole board's decision, that they're not going to let him out," he continued. "Hopefully, that will give him some peace of mind."
Anderton will be 65 years old when he is released from prison. Because he will have served his entire sentence, he will not be supervised by a parole officer.
