SALT LAKE CITY — Erica Lukes thought she would have testified by now.
“I thought that I'd be maybe getting back to enjoying life,” Lukes said, “or just walking across the street on a daily basis, feeling safe.”
It’s been more than 2 ½ years since her then-husband, Christian J. Marx, was charged with the first misdemeanor counts of domestic violence-related assault. Lukes has said the assaults included one episode where Marx came up behind her, pulled her by her hair, tearing out a chunk, and hit her on the head. Since FOX 13 first reported on the charges against Marx in November 2021, Lukes provided police with more evidence and Marx has been charged with more crimes. In all, he’s waiting for trial on four misdemeanor counts of domestic violence-related assault and one felony count of being a restricted person in possession of a weapon.
Marx has pleaded not guilty. His attorney declined to comment or to make Marx available for an interview. In emails sent to FOX 13 last year, Marx disputed Lukes’ versions of events.
The cases have been crawling through the courts in Salt Lake County, keeping Lukes waiting for her day to tell a judge and jury what happened.
Meanwhile, Marx, 56, remains a sergeant first class in the Utah Army National Guard, where his primary job has been as a military policeman.
“We allow soldiers their due process rights,” Lt. Col. Chris Kroeber told FOX 13 in an interview last month.
Kroeber said Marx cannot be promoted while his criminal cases are pending, but that the Utah Guard will not take action against him until those cases are finished.
The Guard has even declined to thus far take any significant action against Marx even after one of his criminal charges was as a result of his military service.
Lukes obtained a protective order against Marx after the alleged assaults. Such orders prevent the subjects from possessing firearms.
But according to a Bluffdale police report obtained by FOX 13, Marx fired a pistol on the guard’s Camp Williams’ range after the protective order was issued. Guard personnel discovered what happened months later and reported it to Bluffdale police.
“He's trained to kill,” Lukes said. “He's trained to inflict damage. That's really, really frightening.”
A review of court entries and audio from hearings shows what’s taken so long.
Marx has received delay after delay after delay. He has switched attorneys. The new ones need time to prepare.
At least once, a prosecutor told a judge that one more delay would help the two sides reach a plea agreement. That agreement was never reached.
One defense attorney asked a judge for a delay because Marx was on active duty with the military at the time and was unavailable.
At one point, Marx missed a court date. A judge issued a warrant for his arrest.
Salt Lake City police went looking for Marx in the summer of 2022. According to a police report, Marx told a crisis worker he would “not go down without a fight” and “isn’t afraid to die or to hurt the police.”
The report says officers chose not to approach Marx. He eventually appeared in court and the warrant was canceled. He has remained free.
Lukes says she’s spent “over 50 hours in court going to his cases.”
Lawyers in the office of Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill are prosecuting Marx.
“You kind of get queued up and, and then await your disposition,” Gill said in an interview with FOX 13. He did not discuss the Marx case specifically.
Judges tend to give scheduling priority to homicides and other violent felonies, Gill said. Lesser felonies and misdemeanors — even those involving domestic violence — tend to get pushed aside.
“There is sometimes a gamesmanship that occurs in the process that you see,” Gill said, “ but I think the court does a really good job of trying to stay on top of it.”
But Marx’s prosecutions have fallen behind benchmarks. The National Center for State Courts found in 2020 that felony cases were disposed of in about 256 days. For misdemeanors, it was 193 days.
Even Marx’s newest charges far exceed those numbers, and his oldest cases are almost 1,000 days old.
One of Marx’s charges has been settled.
In October of 2022, Marx entered a plea to a misdemeanor count of violating a protective order. The count will be dismissed if Marx completes a two-year probation.
Kroeber says the Utah National Guard has conducted at least one inquiry into Marx, called a 15-6 investigation in the military. Kroeber declined to say what any such investigation revealed.
Dwight Stirling is the CEO of the Center For Law and Military Policy and an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California’s law school. He points out Utah has a statute allowing the Guard to start discipline or discharge proceedings at any time — it need not wait for the civilian courts.
“I've seen as a JAG officer,” Stirling said, “many times in my career where, the violation of a restraining order, that will serve as the basis to do a termination.”
While they were still living together, Lukes made recordings of Marx from late 2020 using slurs and insults to discuss former President Barack Obama and then-President-Elect Joe Biden and the possibility of using violence against them and social justice protesters. Lukes turned the recordings over to federal law enforcement. No criminal charges have been filed.
In 2021, a lawyer for the Utah Guard told FOX 13 those sorts of words would be something commanders would take action on. Last month, Kroeber was less committal.
“Until somebody determines that to be a valid and credible threat,” Kroeber said “then it's very difficult for us to take any sort of severe adverse action against a soldier.”
Lukes and Marx’s divorce became final last month. Lukes would like Marx convicted to help keep her protective orders in place.
And, she says, if the Utah Guard discharges her now-ex-husband, it would demonstrate commanders take domestic violence and threats seriously.
“My fear is that they're going to resolve it in a way that will be beneficial to him, and will still keep me in a position where I'm afraid for my life,” Lukes said.