Camp Counselor Gets 3 Years for Molestations

Aformer Saugus camp counselor was sentenced Thursday to three years in state prison and six months in County Jail for molesting two boys assigned to his care.

Phillip Lee Rodgers, 25, asked San Fernando Superior Court Judge Robert D. Fratianne for probation instead of a prison term, citing his cooperation with authorities and therapists after his arrest. “I think that the punishment will be with me for the rest of my life,” Rodgers told the judge.

But Fratianne, in denying probation, said he hoped a prison term would be a “jolt enough for him to realize that this conduct is not acceptable to society.”

Rodgers was arrested last March after a 10-year-old boy told his parents that Rodgers, who was the boy’s counselor at Woodcraft Rangers summer camp, sexually molested him at camp in July, 1984.

While investigating the boy’s allegation, detectives testified, they learned that Rodgers also allegedly molested a 12-year-old camper two weeks after the first incident.

In both cases, Rodgers gave the boys back rubs before sexually assaulting them, according to court documents.

In August, Rodgers pleaded guilty to one count of child molestation and a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct in exchange for having three additional charges of sexual assault dropped.