Editor's Note: Investigators initially provided the wrong spelling of Maxwell Christen's name. It has been corrected.SALT LAKE CITY — Criminal assault charges were filed Wednesday against two Wyoming men accused of attacking two gay men near a Salt Lake bar in 2014.

But Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said he is disappointed that he was unable to file enhanced charges for the alleged hate crime because he says a Utah hate crimes law is unenforceable in cases like the one he filed Wednesday.

"Unfortunately, we do not have a hate crime statute that is workable for prosecutors," Gill said.

Eric Levi Johnson, 26, of Rock Springs, and Chad Ryan Doak, 25, of Green River, were each charged in 3rd District Court with two counts of assault, one being a class A misdemeanor and the other a class B misdemeanor.

Rusty Andrade and and his friend Maxwell Christen are the two gay men identified in the case. Both of them attended Utah Legislature hearings earlier this year in support of a bill proposing a new hate crimes law. The bill ultimately failed in the Utah Senate.

The alleged attack occurred a few blocks away from Club JAM, a gay bar at 751 N. 300 West on Dec. 21, 2014. Charging documents say Andrade suffered trauma to his head, a neck strain, a bruised rib and had several teeth knocked loose after Johnson and Doak approached him and Christen and attacked them while they were returning from a Christmas party. Christen suffered a chin bruise and soreness to his face and neck, police say.

Johnson and Doak insulted the men about their homosexuality and called them by a gay slur, the charges state. Police learned of their identities when they later returned for Doak's wallet, which he left at the scene, police say. A neighbor and a bouncer helped break up the attack.

Prosecutor calls for law change

Gill said Wednesday that he wants to see hate crimes laws in Utah improve so they are easier to apply in the courtroom. Earlier this year, he said none of the 1,279 reported hates crimes in Utah over the past 20 years, most of them racially motivated, were prosecuted under the statute currently in place.

"There’s a wide swath of this kind of (crime) which targets many other members of our community who are not finding a measure of justice when it comes to hate crime allegations," Gill said.

He consulted federal authorities in the case of Johnson and Doak to see whether it was possible for them to be prosecuted under federal law. He eventually reached the conclusion that hate crime charges against them under both state and federal statutes were not feasible.

Gill believes the current Utah hate crimes law is a difficult one to file charges under and results in "meager payout" for victims.

"Also, even if these allegations constituted a hate crime, current law provides for an assault to be enhanced only up to a class A misdemeanor," Gill said in a statement, adding that hate crimes legislation is important because criminal wrongdoing motivated by prejudice is especially harmful to society.

"The secondary victimization really is to the class or group or community that (the victim) belongs to and it sends out a chilling effect and a terror to that community," he said.

Gill said he is "quite optimistic" that stronger hate crimes legislation will be passed in the near future.

State senators who voted down the hate crime bill this year argued that it threatened to punish thought and would not equally serve all Utahns because it singled out specific classes of people requiring hate crime protection.

Warrants were filed Wednesday seeking the arrests of Johnson and Doak.

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