IOWA
Des Moines Register
Written by
Rekha Basu
Two years ago, a youth minister at the Pentecostal Victory Fellowship Church in Council Bluffs pleaded guilty to sexually abusing four young men while he was a church elder. He did it under the pretext of helping rid them of any homosexual thoughts they might have.
Brent Girouex admitted having sexual relations with at least four young men before 2009, though as many as eight have claimed abuse by him. One was 14 when it began. In emotional statements at sentencing, he and the others talked of how the man had gained their trust and manipulated them.
Girouex’s idea of what some describe as “praying away the gay” involved having his subjects lie down while he touched their genitals and made them ejaculate, and sometimes oral sex. Girouex is said to have told detectives that would rid them of evil thoughts.
His arrest was reported in Des Moines media at the time. But a recent flurry of national online media outlets have revived the story, some wrongly reporting that the sentencing had just taken place.
At the urging of some readers, I took a closer look and was appalled at the upshot of the case. What began with 89 counts of sexual abuse and 60 counts of sexual exploitation against Girouex ended with a smaller confession to felony sex abuse with a minor, and an Alford plea to two counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist, which concedes there is enough evidence to convict him.
For that, he got probation.
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