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PROVO -- A Provo police officer arrested last week now faces criminal charges.
Mark Petersen is accused of pulling a gun on his common-law wife. The charges filed Thursday are not as serious as those he was booked into jail on last week. He faces one count of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, and a misdemeanor count of obstruction of justice.
If convicted of the felony, his career in law enforcement could be over.
Petersen, who is free on bail, made a brief appearance in court Thursday morning where he was formally handed the charges against him. It involves an incident on Sunday, Oct. 17.
Orem police say Petersen and his common-law wife were involved in a domestic dispute at a home in Provo and Petersen allegedly pulled a gun on her twice -- once holding the weapon to her head. He was off duty at the time, but was said to be in his Provo police patrol car. He got a friend to tell investigators Petersen had given him a ride to the home, which detectives say was not true.
Petersen's attorney, Mike Petro, told KSL his client is anxious to get the case moving through the justice system. He says Petersen's side of the story will be told in the courtroom.
"It will come out in the preliminary hearing, but he's denied the incident happened at all, the way it's being alleged to have happened," Petro said.
The case came as a shock to Utah County law enforcement.
The Utah County Attorney's Office has recused itself from the case because prosecutors had worked closely with Petersen on many cases.
"Det. Petersen has been in our SVU, sex crime unit, for a long time," said Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman. "He has done a lot of cases with our prosecutors and so we didn't feel we could objectively prosecute this case."
The charges were filed by the Orem City prosecutor, who will handle the case to avoid any conflict of interest. When Provo police were called, the allegations were investigated by Orem police for that same reason.
Petersen remains on paid administrative leave with Provo police. He will return to court Nov. 10.
E-mail: spenrod@ksl.com
