Ex-Regent U. official sentenced on sex charges

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHESAPEAKE -- A former assistant dean at Regent University's law school has been sentenced to 16 years in prison on sex charges involving underage girls.

Stephen L. McPherson of Chesapeake had pleaded guilty in January to forcible sodomy and object sexual penetration involving two girls between 2000 and 2002. He was sentenced Monday in Chesapeake Circuit Court to 80 years but the judge suspended 64 years of the term.

Prosecutor Karen Brown said the 40-year-old McPherson and his wife, Melina, had adopted the girls from Hope Haven Children's Home in Virginia Beach.

The couple served as house parents at the home from August 1996 to August 2000. Each also is charged in Virginia Beach with indecent liberties involving three girls. Those cases have been continued until Sept. 2.