Utah man pleads guilty in booby-trap case

[September 06, 2012]  SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- One of the two young men accused of setting potentially deadly booby traps along a popular hiking trail in Utah has pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment.

Court records show 20-year-old Benjamin Rutkowski entered his plea Wednesday in Provo's 4th District Court.

Rutkowski faces no more than a year in jail at his Oct. 17 sentencing on the misdemeanor charge.

The second defendant, 21-year-old Kai Christensen, has yet to enter a plea and has an Oct. 3 court date.

U.S. Forest Service officers say the two men set the traps in May in a canyon trail near Provo. One trap was rigged to send a 20-pound, spiked boulder swinging at head level. The other was designed to trip a passer-by into a bed of sharpened wooden stakes.

[Associated Press]

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