Former Hanna Boys Center clinical director takes plea deal in sex abuse case

Former Hanna Boys Center clinical director Kevin Scott Thorpe pleaded no contest Friday to child sex assault charges in a plea deal that will avert a trial in perhaps Sonoma County’s highest-profile sex abuse case in recent memory.

Thorpe, 40, earned a 21-year state prison term with his plea, though he would be eligible for release in less than 17 years, prosecutors said. He had previously pleaded not guilty.

He will be required to permanently register as a sex offender upon any release. He also will be subject to consideration for civil commitment as a sexually violent predator if he is determined to be too dangerous to return to the general population, prosecutors said.

As a caseworker and then clinical director of the 73-year-old center for at-risk youth in Sonoma Valley, Thorpe had close contact with scores of vulnerable adolescent and teenage boys in his care, including three of the four victims in the criminal case.

A married father of two young girls, he knew the fourth victim outside of work. Separately, the state residential care licensing board that oversees the Hanna Boys Center accused Thorpe of molesting at least seven clients at the residential facility and school, which is affiliated with Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa.

The center earlier this year avoided a potential state shutdown that stemmed in part from the scandal, which included a whistleblower case brought by Thorpe’s predecessor at Hanna, Tim Norman.

Earlier this month, a Sonoma County jury awarded Norman $1.1 million dollars, finding he was wrongly terminated for speaking up about bullying, drug use and other unaddressed concerns at the home for troubled boys.

Two of the victims in the criminal case against Thorpe are brothers who also are plaintiffs in a civil case against him, the boys center and the Santa Rosa Diocese.

Prosecutors say the abuse against them began in 2007, when they were 14 and 15, and continued until 2011 and 2010, respectively.

During testimony at a May preliminary hearing in the criminal case, the victims detailed early encounters in Thorpe’s office in which he gave them pornography and talked about sex, eventually escalating his encounters to masturbation and finally incidents of oral copulation in his office and elsewhere.

The victims said they submitted to the abuse because they believed Thorpe controlled their future at a facility that supplied food, care and structure they lacked in their family lives.

With his ruling Friday accepting the plea deal, Judge Dana Simons declared Thorpe guilty on five counts of unlawful oral copulation with a minor, five counts of unlawful copulation accomplished by duress, and one count of misdemeanor child molestation.

Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch said the plea agreement negotiated through her office ensures Thorpe will be behind bars “for a considerable period of time” while sparing his young victims the trauma of testifying in the case.

Ravitch said the resolution also eliminates risks related to putting the case before a jury, given the complex relationship between a sex abuser of children and his victims.

“One of the challenges a prosecutor has is explaining to a jury why this conduct occurs repeatedly, why it isn’t reported immediately and why there is no evidence of physical force,” she said. “It’s emotional force that’s being used, by nature of the relationship, and it is a difficult case to explain to a jury.”

The mother of one of the victims said she is struggling with the reality that Thorpe could be back in society in less than two decades, particularly given the gravity of the case against him and the voluminous charges.

“Kevin Thorpe is a true predator,” said the woman, whose name is being withheld by The Press Democrat to protect the identity of her son. “I am shocked and horrified that he will be preying on our children in 16.8 short years.”

Thorpe was arrested in May last year and subsequently fired by the Hanna Boys Center after one of his victims came forward to report the abuse. Sheriff’s investigators corroborated his story and discovered additional victims, as well.

Thorpe was scheduled to go to trial in October on 61 felony counts involving four victims, plus three misdemeanors, and faced a potential term of 255 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

But even then, he would have been eligible to seek early release after 25 years, given new state laws that allow leniency for elderly inmates, prosecutors said.

Instead, he will get 21 years but be eligible for parole after serving 80 percent of the term.

He is scheduled for formal sentencing Aug. 21.

Thorpe’s attorney, Joe Stogner, said his client was ready to take responsibility for his conduct and put in the work needed “to come to terms with what he’s done.”

He said that for Thorpe, seeing his victims take the witness stand at the preliminary hearing, most of them overcome by grief as they tried to tell their stories, “was very, very impactful.”

“He’s been very, very deeply troubled about this case from its inception and is grateful for the opportunity to bring closure and to take responsibility for what he did wrong,” said Stogner. “If it is humanly possible to guarantee that someone will never break the law again, I would make that guarantee with this defendant, with Kevin Thorpe.”

Daniel Beck, who represents the two brothers in the civil case, said he’s eager to hear what Thorpe has to say for himself, once he’s in civil court and “can’t hide behind the curtain of self-incrimination,” which allows a criminal defendant to refuse to testify.

Beck said having the criminal case all but resolved will allow the civil case to go forward at a quicker pace, including getting Thorpe’s deposition and pursuing state licensing records that might reveal information about the nature of the other reported victims and their experiences.

Beck, who was present for Thorpe’s change of plea Friday, said he thought he detected an expression of relief in the defendant “that maybe there’s a chance, one day, he might be able to get out on parole.”?“I think he was thinking about that more than anything else,” Beck said.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.