After a change of heart by the defendant, a judge Tuesday recommended boot camp for a teenager convicted of aiding in a sexual assault at Casper's juvenile detention center.

"You can learn to discipline yourself," Natrona County District Judge Thomas Sullins told Harlan Taylor before handing down the sentence.

Taylor, 18, also received a three- to five-year prison sentence, but he'll be able to petition the judge for a reduction if he completes the boot camp program.

Before the sentencing, Taylor had told an official he wasn't interested in the state's boot camp program for young offenders, which is based in Newcastle. But at the start of Tuesday morning's hearing, Taylor indicated he had changed his mind.

"I think boot camp may help me," Taylor told the court.

The sentencing brings to a close a legal episode that began roughly a year earlier, when two teenagers at the Regional Juvenile Detention Center reported being sexually assaulted by one of their cellmates.

Those allegations prompted separate investigations by the Natrona County Sheriff's Office and the Wyoming Department of Family Services. The Natrona County District Attorney's Office eventually filed charges against Taylor and Carlos Arellano, another former inmate at the center.

Arellano, 18, was accused of sexually assaulting two other inmates inside a dormitory-style cell at the juvenile detention center. Prosecutors alleged Taylor held down one of the victims during one of the incidents.

In August, Taylor pleaded no contest to aiding and abetting second-degree sexual assault. The plea did not require him to make an admission of guilt.

Arellano's case went to trial in October, but it ended abruptly when he made a plea deal with prosecutors. He pleaded no contest to two counts of sexual battery and was sentenced to one year in jail.

His deal came after one of the victims in the case testified he couldn't say whether the sex assault actually happened.

Based on that testimony, Taylor tried to withdraw his plea deal. Sullins denied that request, noting that Taylor voluntarily made the plea deal and confessed during the initial investigation to holding down the victim.

Taylor has been in custody since July 2007, according to his attorney, William Disney.

Reach crime reporter Joshua Wolfson at (307) 266-0582 or at josh.wolfson@trib.com. Read his blog at www.trib.com/blog.