He was a celebrity pastor at one of Canada’s biggest megachurches. Inside the sexual abuse allegations that brought down Bruxy Cavey — and shattered the evangelical image and future of the church — it now turns out: He was a pastor willing to do anything.
Bruxy Cavey, a former church elder and pastor of the Redeemer’s House of Prayer in Sarnia, Ont., will be sentenced Wednesday in Sarnia, Ont., to 12 years in prison after being found guilty of 24 counts of sexual exploitation of children.
He pleaded guilty Friday after a court-martial and was found guilty of nine counts of sexual exploitation of children over the course of his 18-year professional career, including the alleged abuse of six young women, some as young as 13 years old.
The Crown has called it a “vicious and horrific crime.”
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He’s the only man convicted in the country in more than 60 years of trying to make “corporate” Christianity palatable to a secular Canada and it’s likely he will serve far longer than most.
The two-sentence acquittal handed down Friday afternoon means a six-year sentence is likely. If the defence finds other witnesses and arguments to win an appeal, he could go to prison for a decade.
But, for the first time since he was first charged back in 2015, he has been exonerated of the most serious charge, that of raping three girls — and he’ll walk out of Ottawa Centre jail on the cusp of freedom.
Instead of a prison sentence, he’s likely to be ordered to spend the rest of his life in a registered-sex offender’s program.
His defence will not seek parole — the same option that applies to offenders who have served the minimum term — or immediate release.
Instead, his lawyers will try to convince the court that he should be given a suspended sentence and placed on probation.
“On the day that his sentence is handed down, he will have served a prison sentence that should be commensurate with the conduct of the defendant,” said B.C. Supreme Court Justice David Cunliffe in making his ruling.
“It is likely that he will spend the rest of his life in a registered sex offender program.”
Bruxy Cave