Ex-pastor gets six-year term in molestation case

A former Thousand Oaks pastor who pleaded guilty to sexually molesting a young female student in the late 1980s was sentenced this week to more than six years in prison.

William Alan Malgren, 52, briefly fainted after hearing his sentence, handed down Tuesday afternoon by Ventura County Superior Court Judge Bruce Clark. Malgren was revived within minutes.

Prosecutor Maeve Fox said the ruling came after the judge reviewed a psychiatric report suggesting that Malgren was open to counseling and could benefit from it. It also followed the reading of a three-page letter from the victim, who is now a married mother in her 30s living in another state.

“This really messed up her life,” Fox said of the woman who last summer notified authorities about the molestations. “The judge made a decision that he should be punished.”

Malgren pleaded guilty in October to two counts of committing lewd and lascivious acts upon a child and two counts of oral copulation of a person under 16.

Lawrence R. Young, Malgren’s attorney, had attempted to persuade the judge to give his client probation with mandatory therapy, offering more than 20 letters of support that spoke highly of the minister.

When he was arrested Oct. 4, Malgren was working as an assistant pastor of a Baptist church in Moscow, Idaho.

Malgren was accused of molesting his former student at Thousand Oaks Baptist Church school, at church events and on church grounds from when she was 7 until she turned 14. But the statute of limitations permitted his prosecution only for acts that occurred in 1988 and 1989.

Malgren was asked to leave the church in 1989 after he was seen acting inappropriately with the girl, according to Ventura County sheriff’s detectives. He then moved to Washington state for a few years, lost his ordination and moved to Idaho.

greg.griggs@latimes.com