Man pleads guilty, is sentenced for sex crime

SALT LAKE CITY — A man charged with sexually abusing a 7-year-old boy last summer agreed to a plea bargain Friday and, in an unusual move, asked to be sentenced immediately.

Third District Judge Deno Himonas obliged, after carefully explaining to Jorge Denis Gutierrez-Ortiz through a Spanish interpreter what rights the man was relinquishing by taking this step.

However, Gutierrez-Ortiz, 44, said he wanted to plead guilty to attempted sodomy on a child, a first-degree felony.

Himonas sent him to prison for a term of 15 years to life, which is the maximum penalty for that crime.

Police say Gutierrez-Ortiz was in the bathroom of a West Valley City Burger King on Aug. 15, 2009, when the boy walked in. Gutierrez-Ortiz detained the boy and sodomized him, and then fled the building.

Prosecutor Cristina Ortega said the mother was ordering food at the restaurant counter when she spotted an individual leaving. Ortega said the woman instinctively sensed something was wrong, knocked on the men's room door, then opened it and found her son, who was weeping.

Police nabbed Gutierrez-Ortiz, locating him with help from images of him that had been captured by a surveillance camera at a grocery store near the Burger King.

The child's mother tearfully told the judge through a Spanish translator that her son has been traumatized by the attack and has not been the same since.

"My son has suffered a lot since this happened," she said. "He is unable to have a normal life. He can't go to the bathroom by himself because he thinks this will happen to him again."

The boy is in therapy, but now he is afraid of men.

The child insists on using the ladies room and must have someone with him, she said.

"I want this man to pay for what he has done," the woman said, "so he will never be able to do this to another child."

Gutierrez-Ortiz was originally charged with kidnapping and sodomy on a child, both first-degree felonies.

e-mail: lindat@desnews.com