Former Orange County pastor sentenced to prison for sexual battery of church members

A former Lake Forest youth pastor convicted of the sexual battery of four adult female church members was sentenced to two years in state prison Friday, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Sean Patrick Aday, 39 — who worked as a youth pastor at Grace Community Church in Lake Forest — sexually assaulted four women on church property or during church trips overseas, prosecutors said in a statement.

Between January 2008 and November 2015, Aday sexually touched two women against their will while they were restrained. He touched the other two women against their will between November 2014 and August 2015, according to the district attorney’s office.

On October 2015, one of the women reported him to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Aday was arrested on Nov. 6, 2015.

Aday pleaded guilty last month to two felony counts of sexual battery by restraint and two misdemeanor counts of sexual battery.

During a pre-trial hearing, three victims and family members of the victims delivered impact statements to the court.

According to the district attorney’s office, one woman said, “You were an authority figure, and you abused that. You tried to use God to manipulate me. You knew I had a hard time trusting to begin with, and when you finally gained my trust, you took advantage of it.”

Another woman told him that although he pleaded guilty, “if you had truly meant it, you would’ve said it a long time ago. You dragged this out for a year, putting everyone around you through hell.”

The mother of one of the victims told Aday he tore her family apart.

“A man who is repentant will make amends and restitution to those he’s wronged,” the mother said, according to the district attorney’s office. “Instead, these young women have been victimized by having to endure continuance after continuance for a year while Mr. Aday and his attorney figured out their best legal strategies.”

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Twitter: @haileybranson

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