The patriarch of a religious sect has been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for molesting children his followers initiated into a "sexual way of life" as early as age 7.
Arvin George Shreeve was sentenced Monday by 2nd District Judge David E. Roth, who told the defendant that he had caused "significant damage to more than a few children."Shreeve, 61, pleaded guilty Nov. 7 to two first-degree felony charges of child sodomy and two second-degree felony counts of sexual abuse of a child.
He will not be eligible for a parole hearing until 2012, a term that effectively amounts to a life sentence because of Shreeve's age, defense attorney Gary Gale said.
Gale said his client is "very remorseful. He feels that he's hurt a lot of people, and he's sorry about that."
Weber County Attorney Reed Richards said the sentence is appropriate because many lives may have been permanently altered.
Testimony at the sentencing hearing provided a glimpse of some of the shadowy teachings of Shreeve's group, known as The Sister Program or Zion Community.
A woman who broke away from the sect last summer and became the prosecution's key witness said children were taught about sexuality and sexual stimulation from a young age to prepare for intimacy with Shreeve.
Kori Christofferson said the children were exposed to pornographic material by women in Shreeve's "sister council," a group of more than two dozen females - 2 to 60 years old - who saw Shreeve as their eternal male companion and initiated children into the sexual lifestyle.
She also testified that women and children as young as 9 were taught erotic dancing by a professional stripper as part of their instruction in the "Five Arts of Stimulation."
Those "arts," Christofferson said, included instruction on using voice and language "to stimulate your companion or another sister."
She said Shreeve taught women in the group that, "If you are not growing sexually, you are not growing spiritually."
With headquarters in a north Ogden subdivision, the group numbered between 60 and 70 people until a police raid in August caused some members to disperse to other communities.
During sentencing, the judge acknowledged that Shreeve had cooperated with authorities but questioned whether the defendant had accepted full responsibility for his crimes.
Shreeve has maintained all sexual contact was initiated by the children, Roth said, refusing to recognize they had been raised in a persuasive environment designed by the defendant to teach and encourage such behavior.
Three female members of the sect, including Shreeve's daughter, Jennifer, also were charged with child sex-abuse counts. The cases remain at various stages of prosecution.