Man faces felony charge in beating of pregnant teen

NAPLES (AP) — A man who allegedly beat a pregnant teenager in an effort to induce a miscarriage was charged Friday with attempted homicide.

Police said the 17-year-old girl enlisted the beating from Arron N. Harrison, 21, because she wanted to end her pregnancy.

Deputy Uintah County attorney Mark Thomas said he filed the felony charge against Harrison, who was arrested Thursday and jailed on $10,000 bail.

Prosecutors are still weighing possible charges against the girl, who also was taken into custody.

Harrison pummeled the girl's abdomen to try to abort the pregnancy, police said. The six-month-old fetus survived.

"I haven't decided who's more at fault," Mark Watkins, police chief of Naples, 130 miles east of Salt Lake City, told The Associated Press on Friday.

"She was just as cold as the assailant — we're not going to treat her as a victim. She's in juvenile detention," he said.

Neither Watkins nor Thomas knew if either of the two had a lawyer.

The man was expected to appear Tuesday in 8th District Court. If convicted of the felony charge, he faces one to 15 years in prison, Thomas said.

Harrison and the teen are acquaintances, but he isn't the child's father, Watkins said.

The girl spent a day in a hospital with a bruised stomach before her arrest, he said.

Watkins said the beating took place late Tuesday, and that the girl initially told her family she had been mugged by an unknown assailant.

The family called police, who discounted that story and got the girl to speak truthfully about what happened, the chief said.

The man was arrested at his home, where the assault took place, police said.

Marea A. Doherty, a defense lawyer for Harrison on an unrelated theft case, didn't return a phone message left by The Associated Press.

Doherty represents Harrison on his April 13 arrest by police in nearby Roosevelt on a theft charge, according to state court system records.

Harrison also was charged May 18 with felony theft and misdemeanor in neighboring Duchesne County.