by Jessica Schreifels, The Salt Lake Tribune
This story describes explicit details of a sexual assault.
This article was produced by The Salt Lake Tribune, a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
Former Utah therapist Scott Owen admitted in a Provo courtroom on Monday that he sexually abused several of his patients during sessions.
Provo police began investigating Owen in 2023 after The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica reported on a range of sex abuse allegations against Owen, who had built a reputation over his 20-year therapy career as a specialist who could help gay men who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of the men who spoke to The Tribune and ProPublica said their bishop used church funds to pay for sessions in which Owen allegedly also touched them inappropriately.
While Owen gave up his therapy license in 2018 after several patients complained to state licensors that he had touched them inappropriately, the allegations were never investigated by the police and were not widely known. He continued to have an active role in his therapy business, Canyon Counseling, until the newsrooms published their investigation.
In pleading guilty on Monday to three charges of first-degree felony forcible sodomy, Owen for the first time publicly acknowledged that he sexually abused his patients.
Owen, 66, admitted that he sexually abused two male patients “using his position as a therapist” and led them to believe that sexual contact was part of their therapy.
He also pleaded no contest on Monday to another first-degree felony, attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child, in connection with a third patient — a woman who alleged Owen touched her inappropriately during therapy sessions in 2007, when she was 13 years old. A no-contest plea means that Owen did not admit he committed the crime but conceded that prosecutors would present evidence at trial that would likely lead a jury to convict him.
Owen faces a maximum sentence of up to life in prison during a sentencing hearing scheduled for March 31.
Prosecutors agreed in a plea deal to dismiss seven other felony charges that Owen faced in connection with the two male victims. Both told police that Owen engaged in sexual contact with them during therapy sessions — including kissing, cuddling and Owen using his hand to touch their anuses.
Owen admitted in plea documents to having sexual contact with the two patients, including putting one patient’s testicles in his mouth.
Owen admitted in plea agreement documents that, as a therapist, he was in a special position of trust when he had sexual contact with his patients, which he told them was “part of their treatment process.” Utah law says patients can’t consent to sexual acts with a health care professional if they believe the touching is part of a “medically or professionally appropriate diagnosis, counseling or treatment.”
Provo police interviewed at least a dozen of Owen’s former patients, according to court records, all of whom say he touched them in ways they felt were inappropriate during therapy sessions. Many of those patients are men who told police they were seeking therapy with Owen for “same-sex attraction.” Provo police Capt. Brian Taylor has said that some of the former patients’ reports involved allegations that were outside the window of time that prosecutors had to file a case, called the statute of limitations.
Under a negotiated settlement with Utah’s licensing division in 2018, Owen was able to surrender his license without admitting to any inappropriate conduct, and the sexual nature of his patients’ allegations is not referenced in the documents he signed when he gave up his license.
Both state licensors and local leaders in the LDS church knew of inappropriate touching allegations against Owen as early as 2016, reporting by The Tribune and ProPublica showed, but neither would say whether they ever reported Owen to the police. In Utah, with few exceptions, the state licensing division is not legally required to forward information to law enforcement.
The church said in response that it takes all matters of sexual misconduct seriously and that in 2019 it confidentially annotated internal records to alert bishops that Owen’s conduct had threatened the well-being of other people or the church.
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