Ex-Utah County youth symphony leader sent to prison in 2nd sex abuse case

WEST JORDAN — The now-retired director of the Utah Valley Youth Symphony was sentenced on Wednesday for sexual abuse of a child 40 years earlier.

Brent E. Taylor, 76, was sentenced to a term of three years to life in the Utah State Prison for attempted sodomy on a child, a first-degree felony.

Third District Judge Stephen Nelson ordered the sentence to run consecutively to another sentence of the same length in the 4th District Court for forcible sodomy, a first-degree felony, meaning he was ordered to spend at least six years in prison.

Four men spoke about their experiences with Taylor at his August sentencing in Utah County. Jeff, the victim associated with the Salt Lake County case, said Taylor robbed him of 20 years of a life without fear and addiction.

“We all know that there are many more of your victims watching these proceedings from the shadows,” he told Taylor.

Jeff said Taylor moved into his Sandy neighborhood, and initially he did yard work for the man. He said Taylor would offer him incentives, like an ATV he never received, in exchange for sexual acts.

He reported the abuse in 2005. A police report said he had a sexual relationship with Taylor from the time he was 12 until he was 19, but the report was not sent to prosecutors. Jeff came forward about his experience again after he saw news coverage about sexual abuse from Larry Nasser, a youth gymnastics doctor, and his case was reopened.

Taylor pleaded guilty to attempting to abuse a child between 1984 and 1986 during Wednesday’s hearing. He entered the plea as part of a plea deal that dismissed one charge of sodomy on a child, a first-degree felony and two charges of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a second-degree felony.

The man retired in 2017 after over four decades with the Utah Valley Youth Symphony. A Deseret News investigation in 2018 shared the stories of six men, by then in their 30s and 40s, who reported Taylor’s actions.

Three former teenage employees of the former symphony director told the Deseret News that Taylor either sexually abused them or inappropriately touched them years apart. The men gave detailed accounts of repeated sexual behavior with Taylor at his home, in his car and across state lines between roughly 1985 and 2003, starting by the time they were no older than 14, 15 and 16.

A fourth man, a former neighbor, also recalled sexual interactions with Taylor as a young teen and said the man provided him with alcohol and marijuana. Another accuser filed a police report in 2011 alleging that his brother-in-law had been abused by Taylor as a youth. A sixth man, also a former orchestra employee, described lewd activities at Taylor’s home when he spoke to police in 2011.

Taylor was scheduled for a jury trial in his Utah County case earlier this year, which the court was planning to hold with or without him, when he was arrested leaving a medical care facility after checking himself in. He pleaded guilty right before the trial was scheduled to begin.

The judge overseeing that case accused him of exaggerating his medical symptoms to prolong his criminal case after ordering a doctor’s report in 2023 after he repeatedly did not come to hearings.

Taylor’s sentencing in the 3rd District Court on Wednesday took place after almost six years after the charges were filed.