Conversion Therapist Sentenced to 15 Years in Jail
Scott Dale Owen was sentenced after admitting to abusing several of his patients during conversion therapy sessions.
Scott Dale Owen, a former therapist who specialized in counseling gay men struggling with feelings of same-sex attraction, admitted to nonconsensual sexual conduct with his patients during therapy sessions.
The 66-year-old, of Spanish Fork, Utah, will serve at least 15 years in prison, after being sentenced for three convictions of forcible sodomy.
Owen worked at the Canyon Counseling Center in Provo. He allegedly instructed his former patients that the sexual acts were part of their therapy, reported NBC affiliate KSL-TV.
The three charges stem from the alleged sexual abuse of two men who sought treatment for “unwanted same-sex attraction” between 2010 and 2017.
In one case, Owen told a patient, whom he began treating in 2016, that he needed to work on intimacy and became “increasingly physical” each session.
The man claimed that Owen would assure him that he was making progress, even if others didn’t understand the treatment.
In another case, a man whom Owen began treating in 2010 said that Owen told him he was spiritually prompted to work with him and that they would focus on an intimate and spiritual relationship.
According to charging documents, while he was treating the men, Owen also served as a spiritual leader for both, telling one that their physical actions are in line with religious standards and the other that God had given them permission to do things that would be considered morally wrong according to the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Police have talked to at least a dozen other clients who alleged that Owen sexually abused them while purporting to carry out therapy designed to combat their same-sex attraction.
In November 2023, Owen was asked to surrender himself to the police but did not show up.
He was later taken into custody following a four-hour standoff on U.S. Route 89, near Thistle, Utah, after police found him in a car with a gun. He was charged with four counts of forcible sodomy and six counts of “object rape.”
Owen pleaded guilty to three counts of forcible sodomy — a first-degree felony — in connection with the two aforementioned male clients.
Owen also entered a no-contest plea to attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, which was reduced from aggravated sexual abuse of a child, for allegedly rubbing the body of and touching the breasts of a 13-year-old girl whom he was treating.
The child reportedly sought therapy from Owen in 2007 to deal with the death of a parent, and Owen allegedly told her to sit on his lap so “religious authority” would pass into her and help her not feel sad.
Utah Fourth District Judge Kraig Powell sentenced Owen to three terms of five years-to-life, set to run consecutively. Given his age and the severity of the sentence, it is likely he will live out his final days in prison.
The sentence for the charge related to the 13-year-old female patient was ordered to run concurrently with the other charges.
No charges were brought regarding other patients’ allegations against Owen because the statute of limitations had passed between the time those incidents occurred and Owen’s arrest, reported The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica.
The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica previously reported on several other patients who claimed that Owen, over a 20-year career as a therapist, abused his authority to take advantage of them during conversion therapy sessions.
Some of the men, who were members of the LDS church, claimed the church had referred them to Owen and used funds to pay for sessions where Owen allegedly touched them inappropriately.
Owen gave up his therapy license in 2018 after several patients complained to state authorities that he had touched them inappropriately.
He negotiated a settlement with Utah’s licensing division, under which he agreed to surrender his license without admitting to any inappropriate conduct. The allegations against him were never investigated by police and were not widely known, reported the Tribune.
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