CANADA
The Record
CAMBRIDGE — Denouncing the former church deacon for preying on innocent children to satisfy his sexual cravings, a judge on Monday sentenced Chesley Petten to three years in penitentiary.
Justice John Lynch said appeal courts have stressed the need to impose stiff sentences in such cases to denounce the sexual molestation of children.
Petten, 49, had pleaded guilty to one count of sexual interference and two counts of sexual exploitation involving three boys aged 11 to 15 from 1991 to 2007.
Petten was a deacon at Temple Baptist Church and a teacher at Temple Christian Academy in Cambridge. He was forced to resign as deacon in 1995 after one victim’s mother found her son with a pornographic movie Petten had given him.
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