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SALT LAKE CITY — A Holladay man who severely abused his girlfriend's 9-year-old son and kept him home from school to hide the boy's bruises has been sentenced to prison.
Sawyer Daniel Hutto, 26, was ordered Monday to at least one and up to 15 years in prison. Doctors discovered the boy had a brain injury, in addition to other injuries, that would have caused his death if left untreated, charges state.
Hutto pleaded guilty in Salt Lake City's 3rd District Court in May to four counts of child abuse, a second-degree felony. A charge of child kidnapping, a first-degree felony, was dismissed as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors.
Third District Judge Vernice Trease on Monday granted Hutto credit for nearly a year in time already served.
Police said Hutto had slammed the child's head into a wall three times with such force that it left dents in the wall. Hutto also stood on top of the boy with all his weight, held a knife to his throat while threatening him and subjected the child to various punishments, according to charges.
The boy said he was routinely forced to stay in a small closet with no light and could only come out to eat and go to the bathroom, the charges state, and was "not allowed to attend school when he had bruises that people could see."
The child said most of the abuse happened when his mom was at work, but when his mom was present, she "didn't do anything because she was scared."
His mother, Kyra Rae Pacheco, 32, was sentenced to serve about four months in jail earlier this month in connection with the abuse. At the time, she wrote a letter to the court saying, in part, that she had been sober for three years and "I am ashamed of myself for being so neglectful and not aware of my surroundings."
Pacheco in May pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of child abuse, a class A misdemeanor.
