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Thursday was a bad day in court for Mark Shurtleff, but it had nothing to do with the felonies Utah's former attorney general faces over alleged corruption charges.
No, in this case, Shurtleff was representing longtime friend Sov Ouk, who was staring at contempt-of-court allegations for failing to pay court-imposed child support to his ex-wife.
Ouk, after losing his appeal of an earlier court decision over several disputes in the divorce, was ordered last fall to catch up on his child support or be held in contempt.
Thursday's hearing before 3rd District Judge Mark Kouris was to determine whether the contempt motion should be approved.
Suffice it to say, Shurtleff and his client got smoked.
In October, Ouk was found to be $66,000 behind in his payments to help support his two minor children.
At Thursday's hearing, John Green, the attorney for Ouk's ex-wife, said the amount has since grown to about $70,000.
Ouk, who is obligated to pay $1,700 a month in child support, testified that he has tried to keep up with the payments the best he can, but his once-thriving businesses no longer are viable, and he has put them in bankruptcy.
The once high roller — who enjoyed a high-profile friendship with Shurtleff in which the former three-term attorney general gave public testimonials about Ouk's businesses and wrote on Ouk's behalf to modify a loan he had taken out — said he now is broke.
Green got Ouk to testify that he pays nearly $1,600 in rent for his Sandy town house and $1,200 a month for the BMW he leases. He also received $300,000 from the bankruptcy court on the sale of a building he owned through his business, but he said nearly all of that money went to pay off loans he had taken out from individuals and businesses.
Green argued that he could have tapped some of that money to pay his child support.
For her part, Ouk's ex-wife testified that she works three jobs to support the children.
Shurtleff argued Ouk is trying to get his footing after several business setbacks and that his client just needed time to begin making money again to pay the support.
Ouk said he is trying to start new businesses.
Kouris rebuffed Shurtleff's arguments and rebuked Ouk.
He noted the children's mother is "saddled with supporting these kids" and has to work three jobs to do it, while Ouk said he wants to launch new businesses.
"Why doesn't he go out and get a job like she has?" the judge asked.
Kouris also said Ouk's decision to pay off loans instead of meeting his child-support obligations was a matter of misplaced priorities.
No court had ordered Ouk to pay off the loans first.
In the end, Kouris held Ouk in contempt and sentenced him to 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. He gave Ouk six months to pay the back child support before executing the sentence.
If he hasn't satisfied that obligation by then, "he's going to jail," the judge said.
It's anybody's guess where Shurtleff might be in six months.