Update - Fun and games with a 20 foot chain

You can read the original blog here about the “better life” seeker who chained his girlfriend to an engine block so she couldn’t leave the apartment.
http://alienrants.blogspot.com/2007/12/news-from-out-west.html

Now, for the update, here’s the actual story of the trial and sentencing from The Salt Lake Tribune:
Sentence in chained-woman case
Kidnapping charge was dumped, but for beating, choking his girlfriend, man is sent to prison
By Stephen Hunt The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/20/2008 12:33:27 AM MDT

The attorney for a man accused of chaining his girlfriend to an engine block in his West Valley City apartment on Monday argued she asked to be tethered as a "show of her devotion." "It was a bizarre and unusual arrangement," said Jason Poppleton in court, but "there was no kidnapping." In fact, the second-degree felony kidnapping charge was dismissed last month against Fernando Orozco-Trevizo, 32, who pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree felony assault for beating and choking the victim.

Poppleton on Monday claimed that a prosecutor's request for prison time for his client rather than immediate deportation to Mexico was improperly based on the kidnapping charge. Third District Judge Randall Skanchy rejected the argument, sentencing Orozco-Trevizo to prison for up to five years followed by deportation. Orozco-Trevizo, who has nine aliases, was already in the U.S. illegally.

Poppleton had also argued the victim admitted during an interview with himself and prosecutor Alicia Cook that Orozco-Trevizo had at one point threw open the door and asked her to leave, but she begged him not to kick her out. As for the engine block, "that whole ordeal was her idea," Poppleton said. Cook said the victim did not protest at the outset of the chaining episode, which led to the kidnapping charge being dismissed,
but there came a time when she asked to be freed.

Cook said that throwing open the door and asking the woman to leave was "a demonstration of the power [Orozco-Trevizo] had over" his victim. The woman - who was not in court Monday - "didn't have a lot of resources available to her," Cook said. "[Orozco-Trevizo] and the apartment were only things she had."

Orozco-Trevizo bought a 20-foot dog chain Nov. 6, and began chaining the woman by the ankle while he was at work, according to charging documents. He also nailed all the windows shut in the apartment. According to a jail booking affidavit, Orozco-Trevizo told authorities he was concerned the woman was having an affair with someone in the apartment complex.
(End of story)

There was a time not long ago when Fernando would have never made it to the lock-up, let alone been given a light sentence. Times have changed.