Sterling Van Wagenen, filmmaker, mormon and co-founder of the festival of Sundance, was recognized Tuesday, touching on a little girl, between 2013 and 2015, respectively, at the age of seven and nine years old. The man, 71-year-old, who has links with the festival since 1993 has pleaded guilty to the acts alleged against her and risk a sentence of up to six years in prison to life imprisonment.
According to the local daily Salt Lake Tribune , it is within the framework of a negotiated agreement at the last moment with the accusation that the filmmaker, who also taught film at the university, has acknowledged the facts.
Video of the trial of Sterling Van Wagenen
other touching on a 13 year old boy
In an audio recording released in February, he was found to have committed other inappropriate touching in 1993 on a 13 year old boy, her son’s friend came to sleep at home at the time. In this recording, made secretly by the victim in 2018, the filmmaker said to have confessed to such sexual abuse to the police and to the hierarchy of his religion, the Church of the mormons, officially called the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, headquartered in Utah. According to him, he has never been charged for these acts and has just been sanctioned at the religious level by a sort of excommunication temporary.
Sterling Van Wagenen co-founded in 1978 the american film festival in Utah, which has now become the famous festival of Sundance. In 1981, he was appointed executive director of the Sundance Institute, actor Robert Redford, who at the time was married to the cousin of Sertling Van Wagenen. The court must fix his sentence at a hearing scheduled for 2 July.
