Man thanks Orem police officer for multiple arrests, life coaching


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OREM — Police officers more commonly receive praise and thanks for the crimes they solve and the lives they save, but seldom do they receive thanks from the people they put behind bars.

Nick Carmona, who served 23 months at the Utah State Prison on drug possession and theft convictions, said he is grateful to Orem Police Sgt. Scott Spieth for helping to turn his life around.

“It was just a time in my life when I was really struggling with my drug addiction,” Carmona said Friday.

Carmona said he’d found himself in the back of Spieth’s patrol car at least a dozen times, many of them on the way to jail.

Carmona said Spieth used that time to encourage him to do better.

“(He) just kept telling me, ‘I’m better than that,’” Carmona recalled, standing in a parking lot near 1200 North and 100 West where he recalled Spieth giving him a particularly memorable lecture. “'If I put half as much effort into my life and being productive as I did selling drugs and chasing drugs, I’d be really successful now.’”

While Carmona said he initially rejected Spieth’s promptings, he looked more fondly on them during his prison time, during which he underwent a drug rehabilitation program.

“Today, it means a lot,” Carmona said. “I really want to thank him for that.”

Carmona sent Spieth a "Thank You" letter during his prison term, and met face-to-face with the sergeant Friday afternoon outside Orem Police Department headquarters.

“It’s nice to be away from that place, probably,” Spieth said to Carmona.

Carmona sent Spieth a "Thank You" letter during his prison term, and met face-to-face with the sergeant Friday afternoon outside Orem Police Department headquarters. (Ray Boone, KSL TV)
Carmona sent Spieth a "Thank You" letter during his prison term, and met face-to-face with the sergeant Friday afternoon outside Orem Police Department headquarters. (Ray Boone, KSL TV)

Spieth thanked Carmona for his letter.

“I mean, it’s not every day in law enforcement that we get a letter from someone, you know — especially someone who’s in prison,” Spieth said to Carmona. “To see where you’re at now, man — it does me good.”

Now back on the outside as a free man for about a year-and-a-half, Carmona said he has held a job for a year at a residential treatment center for youth. He also has held a second job for three months at an adult treatment center.

Carmona said he is in the process of finding a home in Utah County with his brother.

“It’s possible for people to be down in the gutter, or sleeping in a jail cell, and come out and be productive,” he said. “You can overcome and be who you want to be.”

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