2 charged with aggravated assault in fight outside Utah rodeo that left man critically injured

JUNCTION, Piute County — Two men face felony charges over a pair of altercations after a county fair rodeo early Sunday allegedly left another man severely injured.

Arrest warrants were issued in 6th District Court Friday for Wesley R. Fautin, 33, of Monroe, Sevier County, and Shawn M. Hayward, 48, of Herriman, according to court records.

Both men were charged with two second-degree felony counts of aggravated assault, one resulting in serious bodily injury and the other producing a loss of consciousness in relation to a case that left a 20-year-old man hospitalized with injuries “likely to produce death or serious bodily injury,” according to the charging document.

Fautin was also charged with an additional count of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, in relation to a fight that happened before the second altercation.

Prosecutors say a fight broke out after a rodeo and dance event tied to the Piute County Fair sometime between midnight and 1 a.m. It wasn’t immediately clear what led up to the incident, but Fautin began to attack a 22-year-old man, tackling him and punching him before he “applied pressure to (the man’s) neck or throat, obstructing his airway,” the charging document states.

The 20-year-old tried to intervene sometime during the incident, trying to pull Fautin off his friend. The man kicked Fautin in the face as he tried to break up the fight before a Piute County Sheriff’s deputy responded to break it up, according to police. The deputy told both Fautin and the 20-year-old to stand by their trucks while he tended to the 22-year-old man.

Witnesses told deputies that while the first deputy was focused on helping the 22 year-old and calling for backup, Hayward approached the 20-year-old and “grabbed (him) by the throat.” He started “choking him and restraining him (literally lifted him off the ground by the neck) when (Fautin) approached and punched (the 20-year-old) several times, and by some accounts hitting him even after he was unconscious,” the charging document states.

The deputy was alerted when his wife — who has medical training — yelled for an ambulance for the 20-year-old, who was on the ground and “bleeding profusely from his mouth and nose” about 20-30 feet from the initial fight. She was able to clear blood from the man’s throat and help him breathe before an ambulance arrived.

The man was taken to a hospital in Richfield before he was flown to a Wasatch Front hospital, where he has been in the intensive care unit with “injuries likely to produce death or serious bodily injury,” the document states. It wasn’t immediately clear what his condition was, but prosecutors wrote he was still hospitalized at the time charges were filed on Friday.

“(He) remains hospitalized with injuries to his skull and/or brain (being punched and dropped unconscious to the ground slamming his head on the pavement), his carotid arteries (from being choked) and other injuries he sustained from the violent acts of (Hayward and Fautin),” the document states.

It wasn’t immediately clear if either man fled the scene afterward, but Piute County Attorney Scott Burns told KSL on Tuesday the county was actively interviewing witnesses as social media posts about the case began to spread.

The Piute County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged the incident through a Facebook post on Wednesday, writing that its staff had been in contact with the 20-year-old man’s family, and the case was not “something that needs to be rushed.”

The documents don’t state whether either Hayward or Fautin had obtained any legal representation in the case.