OGDEN -- Next week's trial in an alleged gay-bashing attack has been affirmed in 2nd District Court.
The lawyers involved informed Judge Mark DeCaria on Monday that negotiations had fallen through and that the case would be going to a jury trial as scheduled Dec. 16-17.
Christopher Vonnegut Allen, 31, is charged with one count of burglary, a second-degree felony, and two counts of misdemeanor assault stemming from a June 2 incident. The altercations at an apartment complex at 3455 Harrison Blvd. left a lesbian woman briefly unconscious with a broken nose.
Allen is accused of first attacking a gay man in his apartment after entering with the victim's roommate.
Uttering homophobic slurs as well as yelling he himself was not gay, Allen was slapping then kicking at the head of the man before he was forcibly evicted from the apartment, according to testimony at his Aug. 31 preliminary hearing. The victim bit Allen on the arm during the fracas.
Allen then encountered a woman, whom he knew to be lesbian, outside her apartment and attacked her, according to the testimony, punching her in the nose and breaking it, while again yelling homophobic slurs. She was then kneed in the face three or more times after she was doubled over in pain.
She passed out while talking to police and required surgery for the dislocation fracture to her nose and crushed tear duct in her left eye.
Police arrested Allen that same night, lingering at the apartment complex. He denied the accusations, telling police "some crazy lady ran up and bit me for no reason."
Police theorized he could be charged under Utah's 2006 bias crime law, which would enhance the charges, but only as high as a class A misdemeanor, punishable by a year in jail.
In opting for the second-degree felony burglary charge, which includes entering with intent to commit assault, the Weber County Attorney's Office made Allen eligible for a prison term of up to 15 years.
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