A judge ruled on Monday that there was enough evidence to send an Iraq War veteran to trial for charges stemming from a four-and-a-half-hour standoff with police at his Eagle Mountain home.

Mindy Graham, the defendant's wife, recounted the day in late January that she said began with an argument over sex and ended with Graham being led away from his house in handcuffs after a prolonged standoff with the Utah County SWAT team.

Mindy Graham said her husband began berating her after she said she did not want to have sex because she was not feeling well, telling her that he had wasted 12 years of his life with her and that she was a bad wife and mother. Then he started yelling at the couple's four children as well.

After she sent a text message to a friend, asking the friend to come pick up the children and take them from the home, Graham snapped, his wife testified. He said she could leave if she wanted to, but the kids weren't going anywhere, and eventually threatened to shoot the friend if she showed up to take the kids, Mindy Graham said.

When Graham got two handguns, his wife said she feared that might shoot her or the children. She was so worried, she said, that she sent another text message to her friend, imploring her to "take my kids when I'm gone."

"My 9-year-old asked me, 'Is daddy going to kill you?' I said, 'I don't know,' " Mindy Graham said on the witness stand. "He had snapped. I'd never seen him like that."

About an hour after the couple started arguing, two Utah County Sheriff's deputies went to the house. Mindy Graham said she believed her husband might shoot them -- he had frequently expressed a passionate hatred for police officers, she said, whom he often referred to as terrorists -- but he only talked to them as he stood behind the front door, holding a .45-caliber handgun behind his back. When the officers asked if he had a weapon, Graham said, "That's for you to find out," his wife said.

The deputies asked to talk to Graham's wife, she said, and she took the kids and walked past him out the door.

"It was the scariest walk of my life," she said, adding that she worried that her husband would slam the door and trap them inside the house.

Deputy Mike Brower of the Utah County Sheriff's Office testified about the standoff, which he said forced a nearby elementary school to keep a number of students from leaving so they would not have to walk home past the Graham home. Several neighbors' homes were evacuated.

During the standoff, Graham told officers that "if force were used, he would act out" with a number of high-caliber firearms he had, Brower said, and said he could've already killed deputies whom he had observed taking up tactical positions around his house.

KSL reported that Graham called the station during the standoff, saying he wanted a letter from a judge guaranteeing that he would not be charged with a crime, that the police would not come into his house and that he wouldn't be taken to jail.

"He wanted us to leave," Brower said. "He wanted not to be charged with a crime."

• Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it