A Salt Lake man will spend the next five years in prison after admitting to sexually molesting 11 young girls while serving an LDS mission in North Carolina.
Matthew Alan Nash, 27, pleaded guilty Monday in Macon County Superior Court to 18 counts of indecent liberties with a child. He was sentenced to serve five years and five months in prison and was immediately turned over to the North Carolina Department of Corrections.
In exchange for the guilty pleas, prosecutors dismissed a more severe count of sexual offense of a child.
According to North Carolina police, Nash's victims were all members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints between the ages of 5 and 8 years. The assaults took place while Nash taught class at a local LDS church or during at-home visits with church members between February and May 1999, police said.
Nash served in the North Carolina Charlotte Mission, which covers roughly the western half of the state.
Many of the girls are now in a state-run counseling program, Assistant Macon County District Attorney Steve Boone said. However, he said, in some cases the abuse was subtle enough that the girls may not have known they were victimized.
"The abuse was of such a nature that the kids sometimes may not have known what was happening," Boone said. "They may have felt uncomfortable without completely understanding what was going on."
Nash was released from his mission and later excommunicated after he admitted to his mission president he touched several girls improperly over their clothing, according to a statement released by the LDS Church.
Nash contacted the Macon County Sheriff's Office and confessed to the crimes in January. After a Macon County grand jury indicted him on the 19 sex offenses, Nash turned himself in to Salt Lake police and was later extradited to North Carolina.
Also as part of the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to consolidate Nash's sentence into seven different punishments instead of the 18 he could have faced. The agreement spared Nash up to 14 years in prison.
But given his cooperation with officials, Boone said Nash's sentence is appropriate.
"He came forward. We had not initiated any investigation until he turned himself in," Boone said, adding there was no physical evidence to link Nash to the crimes. "Putting that all together I think it is very reasonable."
A neighboring county had been investigating similar allegations against Nash, Boone said, but agreed not to file charges if he pleaded guilty in Macon County. However, there is still a chance Nash could be charged with similar crimes in other North Carolina counties, he said.
E-mail: awelling@desnews.com