Former Regent assistant dean, wife guilty of child sex abuse

By Shawn Day

The Virginian-Pilot

VIRGINIA BEACH

Stephen McPherson and his wife, Melina, doted on the three teenage sisters at Hope Haven Children's Home.

The couple, house parents at the Christian-based community in Virginia Beach during the late 1990s, treated the girls to dinner and movies. They gave gifts, allowed the girls to stay up later than other children and took them along on vacation.

They also preyed on them.

Court records show the McPhersons manipulated the teens into submitting to fondling, kissing and other sex acts. They cited Bible verses that they said justified the abuse and, afterward, would pray together for God's forgiveness.

On Wednesday, the McPhersons admitted in separate hearings in Virginia Beach

Circuit Court to committing the crimes. Stephen McPherson, a former assistant dean at Regent University, pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with two of the girls; his wife pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with the third.

Stephen McPherson, 40, already is serving a 16-year sentence after being convicted of similar charges in Chesapeake. He pleaded guilty in January to forcible sodomy and object sexual penetration stemming from incidents involving two of the girls in his Chesapeake home.

The McPhersons adopted the three sisters after leaving Hope Haven in 2000 and moving to Chesapeake, according to court records. Melina McPherson, 37, was not charged in Chesapeake.

In Virginia Beach, the couple agreed to plead guilty in exchange for light prison sentences. Stephen McPherson's plea agreement called for him to serve three years in prison. The agreement for Melina McPherson called for her to serve 40 days in jail. Both must register as sex offenders and must have no unsupervised contact with minors, except for their two sons.

Commonwealth's Attorney Harvey Bryant said there was no indication that either McPherson would abuse their natural sons. The victims weren't pushing for jail time, Bryant said, because they did not want to see the McPhersons' boys, ages 4 and 5, grow up without their parents.

Still, neither parent went home after the hearings Wednesday. Stephen McPherson, shackled and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, was to be returned to the Chesapeake City Jail pending a Sept. 16 sentencing hearing in Virginia Beach.

Melina McPherson cried at the defense table throughout her hearing. Circuit Judge A. Joseph Canada Jr. revoked her bond, despite protests by her attorney, Franklin Swartz.

The judge ordered her jailed pending an Oct. 7 sentencing hearing and review of a psychosexual evaluation.

She was handcuffed in front of the 20 relatives and friends who came to support her and her husband and led from the courtroom.

"It's a terrible crime that she's been involved in," the judge told her attorney. "I'm going to honor the plea agreement... but I think she ought to be in jail right now."

Shawn Day, (757) 222-5131, shawn.day@pilotonline.com