This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A Utah inmate admitted Friday to killing his cellmate last year at the state prison.
Timothy Patrick Maez, 39, was charged in 3rd District Court with first-degree felony aggravated murder for the August death of 33-year-old James Charles Corbett.
Maez on Friday pleaded guilty as charged. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced Aug. 21 by Judge Keith Kelly.
On Aug. 10, Maez got into an argument with his Olympus-unit cellmate and punched Corbett, stabbed him with a pen, cut him with a razor and strangled him with a bed sheet, charges state.
He tried to "shove and kick a pen into Mr. Corbett's ears several times," charges state, and "shoved a spoon into Mr. Corbett's eye socket."
Maez also stomped on Corbett, charges say, struck him with his knee and slammed his head against the floor. Once Corbett was unconscious, Maez told police, he used a piece of bed sheet to strangle the man and didn't stop the assault until he heard officers enter the unit for a security check.
Corbett was taken to the hospital, where he was declared dead.
The Olympus facility houses inmates who require mental-health treatment.
Corbett was serving consecutive terms of up to five years each for two counts of attempted sexual abuse of a child.
Maez's most recent incarceration — a sentence of one to 15 years — began in June 2014 after he pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated kidnapping, a second-degree felony.
He was given two subsequent sentences in 2015 — on separate cases — for propelling a substance at a correctional officer and retaliation against a judge or Board of Pardons and Parole member.