This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Jeremy Penick was desperate for drug money the night he and a friend called for a cab two years ago.
Penick, then 21, lived in and out of homeless shelters and supported himself by selling dope. He had hit up clients at the shelter for cash so he could buy a drug inventory, but had come up short.
So Penick and Joseph Ramsay, then 23, set up a robbery the evening of Dec. 19, 2009. They called the Ute Cab Co. and asked driver Joseph Magack to pick them up at a Salt Lake City motel. After Magack took them to an apartment complex, the men asked him to pull into a covered stall, where it appeared they were going to pay for the ride.
Instead, they tried to kill the cabbie.
"They find the one person sure to have money — a taxi driver," prosecutor George Vo-Duc said Friday at Penick's sentencing in 3rd District Court. "They decided to take him by force."
Magack testified at Penick's February jury trial that one of the men grabbed his forehead and neck and held him while the other tried to cut his throat with a knife. A larger man, Magack was able to fight off his two slightly built attackers, but not before suffering wounds in his neck, cheek, shoulder, head and hands, according to court documents.
Penick was convicted of first-degree felony counts of attempted murder and aggravated robbery.
But Judge Royal Hansen on Friday dismissed the robbery count after defense attorney Stephen Howard argued the elements of robbery were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge then ordered Penick to three years to life in prison for the aggravated murder charge.
Hansen called Penick's crime troubling and said the victim suffered psychological trauma. He also accused Penick of minimizing the significance of the crime and failing to take responsibility for his actions.
Penick had argued that jurors wrongly convicted him and claimed Ramsay was to blame for the attack. Defense attorney Howard suggested Penick was present when Ramsay "turned into a maniac" and attacked Magack. Howard also told the judge Penick had a difficult upbringing, with his biological mother abandoning him at age 2 and an adoptive parent leaving him at age 12.
Left to fend for himself on the streets as a teenager, Penick lived in and out of homeless shelters and between foster families, Howard said.
The appeal did little to win Hansen's sympathy.
"I'm sorry you have a difficult background, but that doesn't excuse you from engaging in that kind of conduct," Hansen said.
Penick offered a half-hearted apology to Magack, calling the attack "terrifying" and "not deserved," but also referring to the victim's wounds as "superficial," a description Vo-Duc called "laughable."
Vo-Duc likened Magack to a wildebeest and called Penick and Ramsay hyenas who hunted him down. He said the two planned to burn Magack's van after they killed him. "It's a savage attack," Vo-Duc said.
Magack did not attend Friday's sentencing, but has mostly recovered from his injuries, Vo-Duc said. Hansen ordered Penick to pay at least $5,000 in restitution to the man, but left the amount open in case the victim incurs additional expenses resulting from the assault.
In March, Ramsay, who goes by the street name "Rabbit," was ordered to three years to life in prison for his role in the crime.