A US Christian missionary has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing young girls in Kenya.
Gregory Dow while appearing before a US federal court entered a guilty plea to four counts of engaging in illicit sexual behaviour with a minor in a foreign place between 2013 and 2017.
Then, Dow, 61, was running Dow Family Children’s Home in Boito, Western Kenya, established in 2008.
The orphanage was receiving funds from Lancaster County churches and nonprofits before the missionary fled Kenya in 2017.
Two of the girls were at the time 11 years of age, another was 12 and the other 13.
According to LNP Newspaper, the perpetrator will serve 15 years and 8 months behind bars. He will then be required to register as a sex offender.
He was arrested and charged with child abuse in July 2019.
The prosecution said, Dow “purported to be a Christian missionary who would care for these orphans. They called him ‘Dad.’ But instead of being a father figure for them, he preyed on their youth and vulnerability.”
The prosecutors also noted that he used force and coercion to commit the heinous acts.
“Gregory Dow hid behind his supposed faith on the other side of the world, hoping no-one in the US would know or care about the children he abused. He was wrong,” said US attorney William McSwain
Dow is also said to have pleaded guilty to assault to commit sexual abuse in Iowa back in 1996.
Then, he received two years’ probation and was ordered to register as a sex offender for a decade, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
In 2017, Mr Dow’s wife, Mary Hayes Rose, was fined Sh50,000 by a Sotik court after pleading guilty to charges of implanting birth control devices on the girls.
Hayes used the birth control allegedly to prevent them from getting pregnant in the course of sexual intercourse with her husband.
Janie Jenkins, Mr Dow’s former wife, then, publicly accused Dow of abusing their daughter during the course of their marriage.
Dow is set to be sentenced in September 29.
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