COLORADO
Denver Post
By NOELLE PHILLIPS | nphillips@denverpost.com
A teen-aged girl faced the youth pastor who sexually abused her and told a packed Arapahoe County courtroom how she was considering suicide when the pastor violated her trust and crushed her spirit.
“He never punched me and he never hit me,” the girl said. “But he broke me. As a person I trusted, he shattered what safety was.”
After an hour-long court hearing that featured emotional testimony, fireworks between a judge and prosecutors over sentencing, and a courtroom packed with church members split over the case, Christopher Hutchinson, 37, was sentenced to 20 years of probation as a sex offender. He also received a 90-day jail sentence and was ordered to register as a sex offender by Arapahoe County District Court Judge Natalie Chase.
A jury found Hutchinson guilty in July of one count of sexual assault on a child by a person of in a position of trust and one count of sexual assault on a child. Hutchinson had met his victim while serving as youth pastor at South Fellowship Church in Littleton and was serving as youth pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Parker when he was arrested for the crime.
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