Former college basketball player Carl Pollard has been sentenced to up to 12 years in prison for sexually molesting three young girls.
"I know what I've done is wrong," Pollard, 30, told 5th District Judge William Hart. Hart set four years before Pollard can be considered for parole.Pollard played sparingly in his freshman year at Brigham Young University in 1983-84, transferred to Southern Cal and then played the 1989-90 season at Southern Utah University.
He is a son of the late Pearl Pollard, a star center for the University of Utah basketball team in the late 1950s who died in 1991.
At 7-2 and known as "a gentle giant," Pollard had confessed earlier this year to molesting the three girls, who were under 11 years old. Their mother said the abuse had gone on for seven years.
Pollard is also under investigation for similar offenses in other jurisdictions.
"These are very serious, very threatening crimes, crimes which deprive the victims of part of their souls," Hart said. "How sad it is that children should trust a gentle giant and then learn they shouldn't have."
Minidoka County Prosecutor Gara Newman had sought three consecutive sentences of five to 10 years in prison that would have required Pollard to serve at least 15 years before becoming eligible for parole.
Defense attorney Loren Bingham, who had sought probation, was surprised by the length of the sentence even though Hart stopped short of granting the prosecution's request.
But Newman said the sentence "won't fix the problem. Hopefully, it will serve as a deterrent in the future for others."
The mother of the victims told Hart that Pollard could not be trusted to be released in any community and then read a statement from one of her daughters.
"I feel like my whole life is ruined because so many people know about it," she quoted the girl as saying.
Another daughter's statement read, "I wish I were a baby again and you were gone, then none of this stuff would have happened."
As a prep star, Pollard led Mountain View High School in Orem to the state title as a junior and was voted one of the top players in the country.