Salt Lake County prosecutors on Monday announced they will seek the execution of a prisoner who is accused of stabbing and stomping a fellow inmate to death at the Utah State Prison.
Ramon Luis Rivera, 31, is accused of fatally assaulting 24-year-old Jeffrey Ray Vigil on March 14, 2016, in the common area of the Oquirrh 1, Section 2 housing unit of the Draper prison.
Rivera is charged with aggravated murder and other crimes. Prosecutors last week filed their intent to seek the death penalty in the case.
Prison surveillance footage, played during a July preliminary hearing, shows an inmate who prosecutors said was Rivera repeatedly stabbing Vigil by a flight of stairs. The footage then shows the two walking to the middle of the common area, where the fight resumes, with Rivera kicking and stomping Vigil, prosecutors said.
Rivera put Vigil in a choke-hold, then kicked and stomped him more than 70 times, according to testimony from a Unified Police Department sergeant. The episode lasted about eight minutes.
Vigil died the next day at a local hospital.
The defendant later told detectives that he had told Vigil, who had just moved into the section, to get himself relocated. According to preliminary hearing testimony, the two were members of rival gangs — Vigil with the Ogden Trece and Rivera with the Titanic Crip Society.
According to Rivera’s defense team, Vigil should not have been put in that section.
Now-retired Sgt. Ben Van Zant was in charge of the Oquirrh housing unit at the time, and testified in July that if he had known about the gang rivalry between Vigil and Rivera, he would not have housed them in the same section. Oquirrh 1, Section 2 was “probably the worst” place for Vigil, Van Zant testified.
Vigil’s wife has filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Corrections, alleging that by housing her husband with rival gang members, prison authorities had not kept him safe.
Another inmate, Albert Collin Fernandez, 38, is charged with first-degree felony murder and second-degree felony obstruction of justice for his alleged involvement in the assault on Vigil.
Fernandez allegedly punched the victim and kicked him multiple times in the head, and later appeared to block Vigil’s escape from Rivera while Rivera was stabbing the victim, charging documents say.
Because Fernandez is not charged with aggravated murder, prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty in his case. He is expected in court on Dec. 22 for a pretrial conference.
Rivera is due in court again on Oct. 23.
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