Ex-Scout Leader Gets Maximum for Molestations

A former South County Cub Scout leader received a maximum sentence of 27 years to life in prison Friday for molesting three boys he befriended through Scouting.

Gary Lee Gephart, 40, of Oceanside was an assistant leader for a Dana Point Cub Scout pack at the time of his arrest last June.

Parents of his victims urged Superior Court Judge Leonard H. McBride to give Gephart the maximum sentence, saying their children continue to suffer nightmares and other trauma. The victims ranged from 7 to 12 years old.

“[My son] and many other boys were robbed of their innocence by a man who manipulated people and abused his position of trust as a Boy Scout leader,” one mother wrote in a letter to the judge.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Rosanne Froeberg described Gephart as “the closest thing to a purebred pedophile.”

Gephart, who last worked as a convenience store cashier, admitted molesting the boys, but said he didn’t know how to stop and couldn’t afford to get treatment, according to a pre-sentencing report. He told a probation officer preparing the report that he never used force or threats with the boys and said he hoped to get help in prison and “get his life straightened out.”

The defendant started volunteering with Cub Scouts in 1972 when he lived in Indiana, and enlisted as a leader with groups in Dana Point, San Clemente and Pomona.

He was arrested on June 22, 1995, after an 11-year-old boy said he was fondled while the two shared a tent on a camping trip at Doheny State Beach. Additional charges were filed later when other boys also said Gephart molested them as early as January 1993.

An Orange County jury in March convicted him of molesting three boys, one repeatedly, but deadlocked on charges involving a fourth. He faces molestation charges in Los Angeles County involving a Pomona teen.

He was sentenced under the state’s one-strike law for sexual offenders, which set his minimum sentence at 15 years.