OGDEN — The triggerman in a drug robbery that killed a teenager and left his brother critically injured was sentenced Tuesday to 26 years to life in prison.

Daniel Viegas-Gonzalez, 31, of Farmington, apologized to the surviving victim and his family members, even carrying on a conversation with Judge Reuben Renstrom as the jurist meted out the punishment.

“I’ve been locked up for three years and I’ve had a lot of time to think about the stuff I’ve done,” Viegas-Gonzalez said. “I want to apologize for my actions. I know what’s coming my way.”

In a December plea bargain, Viegas-Gonzalez admitted to killing Kamron Johnson, an 18-year-old Ben Lomond High School student who stayed home sick that day, Feb. 11, 2019, and critically wounding his older brother, Eric, leaving him for dead.

Prosecutor Jamie Swink of the Weber County Attorney’s Office urged Renstrom to impose consecutive sentences for the two offenses, meaning Viegas-Gonzalez would spend at least 42 years in prison and probably more. Swink called the shootings senseless and premeditated and said they featured efforts to cover up the crimes.

But Renstrom said the sentences will run concurrently: 26 years to life for aggravated murder and 16 years to life for attempted aggravated murder. The judge also sentenced Viegas-Gonzalez to up to five years for aggravated assault in a separate case.

During co-defendant Theron Farmer’s trial last year, witnesses said Viegas-Gonzalez opened fire once they were in the Johnsons’ West Ogden home. Evidence included a 911 call surreptitiously placed by the wounded brother, in which Farmer urged Viegas-Gonzalez to “finish off” the brother.

A jury convicted Farmer, 25, of Ogden, and on Dec. 8 he was sentenced by Renstrom to 26 years to life in prison. Farmer, like Viegas-Gonzalez, received an extra year due to a weapons enhancement to the charge, adding to the standard 25-year sentence.

Swink asked Renstrom “to lay down as heavy a sentence as you can today” against Viegas-Gonzalez, citing his criminal history as well. He said Viegas-Gonzalez threatened a 15-year-old in 2018. The victim told police Viegas-Gonzalez cocked a handgun and pressed it to his chest. “He said he would kill me and get away with it,” the teen said, according to Swink.

In February of that year, Viegas-Gonzalez was sentenced to 60 months in prison in California but was released a short time later and moved to Utah. “He resumed the same game, using drugs and pulling guns on people,” Swink said.

The prosecutor said Utah is “not like California. You’re going to be put away here.”

Renstrom said he had “100 questions” for Viegas-Gonzalez. “California has become such a depraved place,” the judge said, asking Viegas-Gonzalez, is murder “OK in California?” “It’s not OK anywhere,” Viegas-Gonzalez replied.

Renstrom said Utah “accepts people with open arms,” including drug users who are looking “for a new beginning.” The judge said he has drug offenders in his own family and told Viegas-Gonzalez, “You probably found the drug culture pretty soon here in Utah.”

The judge said Viegas-Gonzalez should be thankful that the Johnsons agreed to a plea bargain, thereby bypassing a trial, which could have resulted in a conviction requiring a sentence of life without parole.

The judge asked Viegas-Gonzalez if he has children. He does, a 15-year-old son in California. “I hope you someday have a day when you can show you have reformed and you can embrace your son,” Renstrom said.

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