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PRICE — A Price man was sentenced to prison Tuesday in seven cases, including a case filed by Carbon County prosecutors following the death of the man's cousin in a July 2014 house fire.
James William Pendleton Jr. was ordered to serve two concurrent terms of up to five years in prison for attempted manslaughter and attempted kidnapping, both third-degree felonies, in connection with the death of Brian William Swink.
Judge Lyle Anderson also imposed concurrent terms of up to five years in prison for felony charges of assault by a prisoner, possession of a controlled substance, burglary, theft and criminal mischief in three cases unrelated to Swink's death.
In addition to the prison sentences, Pendleton received three terms of up to one year in jail for misdemeanor charges of assault, attempted witness tampering, and attempted possession of prohibited items in a correctional facility. Anderson ordered Pendleton to serve the jail time as part of his prison sentences.
Investigators believe Pendleton beat Swink with a baseball bat on July 29, 2014, then locked him in the basement of Pendleton's house with the help of Ashley Platt and Michael Dees. Swink, 32, was still in the basement when authorities say he started a fire that killed him.
Witnesses at the preliminary hearing testified, however, that Swink went to the basement on his own and was not being held against his will. An autopsy determined that he died of asphyxiation from smoke inhalation.
Carbon County Attorney Gene Strate initially charged Pendleton, Platt and Dees with murder, aggravated kidnapping and criminal conspiracy. Pendleton, 40, was also charged with aggravated assault.
Strate told KSL he ultimately decided to negotiate a plea with Pendleton due to a number of challenges that developed as he prepared to prosecute the case. Several of the state's witnesses have been convicted of unrelated crimes in the months after Swink's death and are serving prison or jail sentences, the prosecutor said, and there were conflicting accounts of what happened in the hours leading up to the fire.
Platt, 22, and Dees, 39, still face charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy for Swink's death. They are scheduled to go on trial July 20.
As part of Tuesday's hearing, Pendleton was also sentenced to up to five years in prison for a felony theft case filed by Emery County prosecutors. The judge ordered that sentence to run consecutively with the sentences handed down in the Carbon County cases.
