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FARMINGTON, Utah (AP) — A Centerville man accused of trying to kill his estranged wife has been sentenced to at least three years and up to life in prison.
The Standard-Examiner newspaper in Ogden reports that the sentence was handed down to 51-year-old Stepan Badikyan on Tuesday, after Judge David Connors denied the defendant's attempt to withdraw his guilty plea.
Prosecutors say that he punched the woman, stabbed her with a box cutter and tried to run her over in a store parking lot in Bountiful before he was restrained by shoppers in May 2014.
Badikyan says he isn't capable of murder. His lawyer Julie George says that the woman told him she was considering a divorce when her client was suicidal.
Badikyan speaks only Armenian and says he did not understand the consequence of his guilty plea to attempted murder.
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