16 years in prison for American missionary who abused underage girls at his Kenyan orphanage
An American missionary was sentenced to almost 16 years in federal prison for abusing underage girls at a Kenyan orphanage, which he ran together with his spouse.
Gregory Hayes Dow, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, abused 4 underage girls for years while operating the Dow Family Children’s Home in Boito, Kenya, between October 2013 and September 2017.
Dow was sentenced to 188 months in prison on Thursday, NTV Kenya reported. After he’s released, he will be prohibited from interacting with minors under 18 years old and is required to stay under lifetime supervision.
Dow, who had been convicted in 1996 for assault with intent to commit sexual abuse on a child in Iowa, traveled to the Republic of Kenya in 2008 to begin the orphanage together with his wife, Mary Rose Dow.
For quite a few years, he sexually abused no less than 4 teenage girls who stayed at the residence.
Investigators mentioned that his spouse “transported the victims to a medical clinic to have birth control devices implanted into their arms so that Dow could perpetuate his crimes without fear of impregnating his victims.”
At Dow’s sentencing, U.S. District Judge Edward Smith said his crimes had been “as evil, as depraved, as any case that’s come before me,” according to Lancaster Online.
“You went to Africa as a missionary. It seems you were a missionary from hell,” the judge stated prior to ordering the 61-year-old man to in addition, pay $16,000 in restitution to cover the victims’ psychological health therapy.
Instead of being a beacon of hope for the youngsters, Dow was “evil disguised as hope,” Smith mentioned. “And the idea that it was done in the name of religion is unfathomable.”
In June, Dow acknowledged that he assaulted the girls on a number of occasions and pleaded guilty to 4 counts of participating in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place.
Two of the girls were only 11 and 12 years old when the abuse started, the Department of Justice said.
His sentencing comes three years after Dow fled Kenya and returned to Pennsylvania when his acts grew to become public.
“The defendant purported to be a Christian missionary who cared for these children and asked them to call him ‘Dad.’ But instead of being a father figure, he preyed on their youth and vulnerability,” a press release by the Department of Justice reads.
“Gregory Dow hid behind his supposed faith on the other side of the world, hoping no one in the U.S. would know or care about the children he abused,” U.S. Attorney William McSwain added.
“He was wrong,” he concluded.
