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AMERICAN FORK — The attorney for a former youth symphony leader charged with sexually abusing youth in Utah and Salt Lake counties said Tuesday she still has had no recent contact with her client who lives in Colorado — leading a judge to cancel the jury trial tentatively set in October.
Brent Taylor, 75, was ordered to turn himself in at the Utah County Jail in June after 4th District Judge Roger Griffin determined he was exaggerating his medical symptoms to delay his case while on pretrial release.
Taylor was charged about five years ago, shortly after his retirement from the Utah Valley Youth Symphony where he worked for four decades.
At a hearing two weeks ago, defense attorney Cara Tangaro said since Taylor's nurse died, she has lost contact with Taylor. Taylor would previously communicate through the nurse texting and emailing on his behalf. Now Tangaro only has contact through phone calls to his mother who does not have a smartphone.
Deputy Utah County attorney Julia Thomas said Tuesday that serving the warrant has been hard, but she believes the Utah County Sheriff's Office and federal authorities are currently working on getting Taylor into custody. He is currently living in Colorado, but was living in Provo when he was first charged in 2018.
"I guess there are some odd or different rules in Colorado for service of an out-of-state warrant, but they have been trying to get it accomplished," Thomas said.
Taylor is charged with forcible sodomy, a first-degree felony, in Utah County. He also faces other criminal charges in Salt Lake County: two counts of sodomy on a child, a first-degree felony; and two counts of aggravated sex abuse of a child, a second-degree felony.
The criminal charges were filed against Taylor after a 2018 Deseret News story reported that three former teen employees of the orchestra said Taylor either sexually abused them or inappropriately touched them between 1985 and 2003, a former neighbor recalled sexual interactions with Taylor as a young teen, a fifth person filed a police report in 2011 alleging that his brother-in-law had been abused by Taylor as a youth, and another former orchestra employee described lewd activities at Taylor's home when he spoke to police in 2011.
Although the October trial is now cancelled, Griffin emphasized that there is another trial already scheduled where Taylor's case will have first priority in June 2024. The October case was scheduled at the same time as another trial to maximize the court's time in case that the trial in the other case did not move forward.
Trials scheduled in Taylor's case have already been delayed four times — three of those times because of Taylor's health which the judge later determined was a delay tactic.
Taylor has appealed the no-bail warrant issued by Griffin in June, and the final brief before the Utah Court of Appeals is due on Friday.
The next hearing for Taylor on this case is on Oct. 24. He is also scheduled for a jury trial in 3rd District Court beginning Jan. 30.
