Provo • The last time “Sam” met with his therapist, Scott Owen, the session was nothing more than an hour of Owen sexually abusing him, he said. Sam remembers sitting in his car afterward, screaming as loud as he could.
“I could feel him all over my skin,” Sam said. “I could not believe this was happening.”
It was October 2017 and Sam had been seeing Owen for therapy for more than a year. Sam, a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was struggling with what he called “unwanted same-sex attraction.”
At first, he said, he had been hopeful about insights the trained therapist might offer: Owen also was a high-ranking leader in the LDS Church at that time, Sam said, and Owen assured him that he had helped more than 200 men who felt similarly.
Instead, he said, Owen “meticulously leveraged” his two roles as a therapist and a church leader, blending religion and therapy to assure him that the sexual touching during their sessions was key to helping him heal, learn how to accept intimacy and grow closer to God.
“He exploited my trust, he weaponized my faith and dismantled my confidence,” Sam said Monday in a Provo courtroom. “What he did was not just unethical. It was calculated, predatory and destructive.”
Owen pleaded guilty to three charges last month, admitting he sexually abused Sam and a second patient who also said he sought Owen’s help because he was struggling with his sexuality and Latter-day Saint faith. Owen also pleaded no contest in another case, saying prosecutors likely had enough evidence to convict him at a trial on an allegation that he had groped a young girl during a therapy session.
But the number of people who say that Owen harmed them is much larger — and they filled a Provo courtroom on Monday as Owen was sentenced to spend at least 15 years in prison.
One by one, they stood at a podium and told Owen how he had hurt them.
Most were his patients, like Sam. The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not identify victims of sexual assault without their permission and is using a pseudonym to refer to Sam. Others in this story agreed to the use of their names.
Another man said Owen abused him when Owen was a leader of a young men’s group organized by the LDS Church.
“He had sleepovers at his house,” Mike Bahr said. “I was there once, and I have lived in a nightmare since.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mike Bahr speaks in a Provo courtroom on Monday, saying that Scott Owen abused him when Owen was a leader of his church's young mens' program.
There were family members of men who had died by suicide, one of whom said his brother disclosed that Owen had abused him just days before taking his life.
And there was one of Owen’s own family members, his cousin, who alleges that Owen molested him on a family trip when they were kids. After becoming more public with his own abuse allegations several years ago, James Cooper has worked to gather others who say his cousin victimized them.
“It took so much effort,” he told the judge. “Dozens of people affected by Scott, nearly half a century that culminated in this moment of four charges for which he pleaded guilty. It’s a sad victory to me.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) James Cooper speaks Monday during Scott Owen's sentencing hearing. Cooper is Owen's cousin, and alleges the man abused him when he was a child.
When Owen, 66, was given a chance to speak, he said there was no excuse or rationale for what he had done.
“I am so sorry,” he said. “All I have to offer is what’s left of my life. And I hope that in offering those years, justice will have been met in some small fashion, and those who I have hurt can disconnect from me and move forward with their healing.”
Defense attorney Earl Xaiz said Owen did not want leniency from the judge, but mentioned in court that his client had been sexually abused himself as a child and had himself struggled with his sexuality.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Former Utah County therapist Scott Owen, right, pictured alongside defense attorney Earl Xaiz. Before he was sentenced, Owen spoke publicly, saying, "These individuals came to me seeking help. They excepted me to be professional, and I betrayed that trust."
Fourth District Judge Kraig Powell on Monday sentenced Owen to a 15-years-to-life sentence. Given Owen’s age and the nature of his crimes, both prosecutors and the defense agreed it is likely he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Powell became emotional as he handed down the sentence, telling Owen that he not only harmed those who spoke publicly on Monday, but all of those therapists and church leaders who are ethical and working to help people.
“Thousands and thousands of these people, I fear, will be affected by this terrible, abhorrent case,” the judge said.
Provo police began investigating Owen in 2023 after The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica reported that summer 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 said their bishop in the faith referred them to Owen and used church funds to pay for sessions where 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 Tribune and ProPublica published their investigation.
Under a negotiated settlement with Utah’s licensing division, Owen was able to surrender his license more than five years ago 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.
Many of Owen’s patients who have come forward said they were struggling with their sexuality and their faith when they went to therapy with him.
The church has had shifting levels of acceptance of gay members. In the 1960s, “homosexuality” was included in a list of behaviors that could result in excommunication. By the 2010s, the church began to publicly acknowledge that its members do not have a choice in being attracted to the same sex; today, church policy says a gay member can remain in good standing if they remain celibate and never marry someone of their same gender.
Police interviewed more than a dozen former patients of Owen’s, all of whom reported that he touched them in ways they felt were inappropriate during therapy sessions. But Owen only faced charges in connection with three patients, because the type of touching that the other men alleged fell under parts of the criminal code that had a shorter window of time for prosecutors to file a case, called the statute of limitations.
Those crimes that Owen was originally charged with — forcible sodomy, object rape and aggravated sexual abuse of a child — are all felonies that have no statute of limitations. He pleaded guilty to three charges of first-degree felony forcible sodomy, admitting 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 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.
That woman acknowledged during Monday’s court hearing that her case was dissimilar from the others who alleged abuse — she is the only woman to publicly say that Owen abused her.
“I can only imagine how much hurt we share,” she said, “but also how profoundly different the hurt is we share.”
She said that she hoped Monday’s sentencing would bring closure, and said she was reclaiming her own strength after she said Owen made her feel like something was wrong with her.
“He no longer holds power over me,” she said.
For some who accused Owen of abuse, Monday’s sentencing was the only chance they had to address Owen because charges could not be brought in their cases. That includes Michael, who asked to be identified by only his first name. He said he saw Owen for therapy on and off for about a decade, starting when he was 14. He read a letter to his younger self in court on Monday.
“I just learned on Thursday that we are beyond our legal opportunity to fix this problem,” he said. “And it broke my heart to learn that I can’t pursue a court case for you. … You’ll have to be strong. It’s going to be so hard, but you’re going to make it through.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Michael, a former patient of Scott Owen's who asked to be identified by his first name, speaks during Owen's sentencing hearing.
Both state licensers 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.
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.
The church has said it has no process in place to vet the therapists its church leaders recommend and pay for using member donations. It is up to individual members, a church spokesperson has said, to “make their own decisions” about whether to see a specific therapist that their bishop recommends.
