Judge declines to step aside in mink-release case
Rejects plea deal calling for six-month sentence.

By Pamela Manson
The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 01/12/2010

U.S. District Judge Dee Benson has declined to step aside and let another jurist impose the sentence on William James Viehl, who has admitted releasing hundreds of mink at a South Jordan farm in support of animal rights.

Viehl asked that his case be reassigned after Benson rejected a plea deal that called for a six-month prison sentence and said he intended to impose a term of at least two years behind bars. A prosecutor requested the term three times at a November hearing.

In a written opinion on Tuesday, Benson turned down a defense argument that the government violated a plea bargain that called for it to recommend six months.

"Moreover, the court is mindful that a sentencing recommendation is just that -- a recommendation," Benson said.

Defense attorney Heather Harris acknowledges that the U.S. Attorney's Office made the recommendation. But she said prosecutor John Huber also presented a slide show at the November hearing that included pictures of vandalism by animal rights activists in unrelated cases and contended a phrase spray painted on the side of a barn at the mink farm -- "We are watching" -- was a threat.

Those actions, Harris argued, negated the sentence recommendation.

But Benson said the defense opened the door to the presentation by asking that Viehl be credited for time served on house arrest and immediately placed on probation. He added that the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously has ruled a criminal defendant who has struck a plea deal has no right to an "enthusiastic" recommendation from the prosecutor.

No sentencing date has been set.

Prosecutors say Viehl and co-defendant Alex Hall released about 650 mink on Aug. 19, 2008, at the McMullin farm. The two were indicted last year on one felony count of damaging and interfering with animal enterprises at the farm and a misdemeanor charge of attempting to damage the operations of the Mathews mink farm in Hyrum on Oct. 18, 2008.

Viehl, 23, of Layton, pleaded guilty to the felony. Hall, 20, of Ogden, has pleaded not guilty and is slated to go to trial in February.

pmanson@sltrib.com