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PROVO — Jerrod Baum, a Juab County man serving life sentences for murdering a young Utah couple, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, a third-degree felony.
Judge Derek Pullan sentenced him to zero to five years in prison, with the sentence running concurrently to the four life sentences he is already serving.
Baum was initially charged with six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony, in January 2022, but those were all dismissed or reduced as part of a plea deal.
Charging documents said Spanish Fork officers obtained a search warrant for a phone that belonged to Baum during their investigation in the other case and located 15 images of child pornography on a phone. Charges also said the search history showed searches for child pornography as well.
Baum's attorney, Brixton Hakes, said his client "attempted to view" child pornography, and argued a concurrent sentence is appropriate because there were "major issues" with showing in trial who possessed the phone.
Hakes and deputy Utah County attorney Stephen Jones both said they agreed with a concurrent sentence to Baum's sentences in the double murder case.
Baum appeared at the hearing virtually from a room in the Utah State Prison. He has been in prison since he was sentenced on June 9, 2022.
The charges in this case were filed about two months before the jury trial where Baum was found guilty of brutally murdering Brelynne "Breezy" Otteson, 17, and Riley Powell, 18, and tossing their bodies into the Tintic Standard Mine outside Eureka in late December 2017.
He was found guilty of two counts of aggravated murder and two counts of aggravated kidnapping, first-degree felonies; two counts of abuse or desecration of a dead human body, a third-degree felony; and obstructing justice, a second-degree felony.
On Tuesday, Pullan didn't make any comments outside of the sentence for Baum. But during the sentencing in the other case, he said the murders were "the most violent, the most selfish, the most senseless, the most disturbing that I have ever witnessed," in his 20 years as a judge.
He told Baum that his life in prison is merciful, as well as just, and said the killings were a "narcissistic brutal act of cowardice."
