Convicted murderer Marco Mike Heimuli, who was accused of aggravated assault, a first-degree felony, for his part in the beating of a corrections officer in 2019, pleaded guilty on March 9 to a lesser count of assault by prisoner.
At the time of the assault, Heimuli was serving time at the Central Utah Correctional Facility (CUCF) for killing an 18-year-old at a Fourth-of-July street party in Salt Lake City and also wounding a teenage girl in 2006.
The current charges stem from an assault allegedly committed on Aug. 7, 2019 by Erick Clopton, also a convicted murderer, on corrections officer Dustin Johnson, whose injuries were so severe they required hospitalization.
During the assault, Heimuli interfered with Brad Wilson, another corrections officer at the scene, who attempted to stop Clopton’s assault and radio for help.
Clopton’s trial for aggravated assault is scheduled for a jury trial later this year.
Both prisoners were charged as habitual violent offenders, which means that their sentences could be enhanced to as much as life without parole. Heimuli’s plea takes the life without parole sentence off the table for him.
Instead, Judge Wallace A. Lee sentenced Heimuli to an indeterminate 5-year sentence to run concurrently with the one he is presently serving.
