Matthew Derek Petersen booking photo from the Cache County Jail.
LOGAN — A 37-year-old Taylorsville man with a lengthy criminal history is going back to prison for stealing thousands of dollars in construction equipment from a Cache Valley contractor. Matthew Derek Petersen asked for another chance, before being sentenced to serve 1 to 15 years at the Utah State Correctional Facility.
Petersen was sentenced Wednesday, Jan. 24 in Logan’s 1st District Court. He previously accepted a plea deal, pleading guilty to theft, a second-degree felony.
According to prosecutors, Petersen stole a construction trailer in Providence, during the nighttime hours of Aug. 25-26, 2022. It contained more than $10,000 worth of mostly new tools belonging to a local contractor.
Cache County Sheriff’s deputies obtained surveillance footage from an adjacent business which captured video of a truck as it pulled the trailer from the parking lot. It appeared to be a maroon Dodge Ram with an extended cab, along with a number of additional distinguishing features.
Several days later, an off-duty deputy located the stolen trailer abandoned in a campsite. It had been stripped and emptied of its contents.
On Sept. 1, 2022, deputies from the Bear Lake County Sheriff’s Office located the defendant’s truck in Paris, Idaho. It was registered to Petersen. The tire tread matched tracks from the campsite where the abandoned trailer was found.
Investigators located several of the stolen items inside the truck. Most of the tools were gone, leading law enforcement to suspect they had been disposed of, sold or stored at another location. A cell-phone photo showed Petersen posing with a majority of the tools from the trailer.
During Wednesday’s sentencing, Petersen said he was “truly sorry for those he affected.” He told the court, he needed help and expressed hope to attend a treatment center instead of prison.
Cache County Deputy Attorney Griffin Hazard said Petersen had received plenty of chances and was just looking for an easy way out. He noted how the defendant was a “high risk” to the community and had been in prison before for various crimes in Idaho.
Judge Brian Cannell said Petersen had a lengthy criminal history that merited a prison sentence. He hoped the defendant would get help while incarcerated.