EX-PRISON PSYCHOLOGIST GETS PROBATION ON DRUG COUNT

A former prison psychologist was given probation after pleading guilty to a
misdemeanor drug charge.

Roger Thomas Pray, 52, pleaded guilty to illegal possession or use of a
controlled substance, a class B misdemeanor, during a 3rd District Court
hearing last month.

Judge Anthony B. Quinn sentenced Pray the same day to a 45-day jail term.
However, Quinn suspended the sentence in lieu of 12 months of probation and
a $300 fine.

Pray, an 18-year Department of Corrections employee, was arrested June 13
by West Valley police after his vehicle was spotted parked along a
seldom-used dirt road. Officer Joseph McCuen caught Pray and another man in
a sex act.

The officer also found a pill bottle containing five marijuana cigarettes
just outside the vehicle. According to a police report, Pray admitted the
drugs were his, that he had met the man downtown and that they had later
had sex.

The man told the officer that Pray had offered him $20 for a sex act. Pray
was also charged with patronizing a prostitute, a class B misdemeanor, but
prosecutors dropped the charge as part of a plea bargain. During the early
1980s, Pray ran the prison's sex offender program at the Bonneville
Community Corrections Center in Salt Lake City. Later, he was a therapist
for sex offenders at the Utah State Prison. For the past two years, he had
worked in the diagnostic unit. He resigned from the Department of
Corrections after being charged.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski