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Utah 'Mountain Man' set to take plea deals

SALT LAKE CITY — He eluded police for more than six years, ransacking cabins across a wide swath of Utah as he trekked hundreds of miles alone on his snowshoes with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

After authorities caught him last year, he continued his solitary ways in court as he fired his defense attorney and defiantly told a judge he would represent himself against a host of state and federal burglary and theft charges.

But today in a courtroom in St. George, Troy James Knapp, known by many as the “Mountain Man,” is set to finally face justice by agreeing to a package of plea deals that will bring an end his court case, and start the clock on a prison sentence expected to be at least 10 years.

Knapp, 46, will go first before a federal judge who must approve parameters of a deal Knapp agreed to in April on federal weapons charges that stem from him firing shots at agents during his capture in April 2013.

From there, Knapp will go before a state judge where he’s scheduled to take plea deals from seven Utah counties, said Sanpete County Attorney Brody Keisel. Details of the plea deals are not being disclosed.

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