JeffCo Caregiver Sentenced For Sexually Assaulting Boys

LAKEWOOD, CO – A man who sexually abused boys at a Lakewood group home has been sentenced to 54 years to life in prison, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office said.

Wayne William Sexton, 56, was found guilty May 10 of multiple counts of sexual assault of a child by a person in a position of trust, as well as contributing to delinquency of a minor and unlawful sexual contact.

Between 2015 and 2018, Sexton was the director of Bridgeway, a juvenile group home in Lakewood. The group home was contracted through Savio, a non-profit organization that provides treatment and intervention services for youth and families.

While he was director, Sexton befriended and groomed five vulnerable teenage boys who were living at Bridgeway. The young victims said they saw him as a father figure. Sexton then sexually assaulted them at two different locations, prosecutors said.

Sexton also gave one of the boys marijuana on numerous occasions and would smoke it with him. He gave alcohol to another boy and also drank with him, prosecutors said.

One boy, who had acted out after being sexually abused as a younger child, ended up in the Bridgeway group home at 9820 W. 21st Avenue. He told Lakewood police Sexton sexually abused him beginning when he was 15 years old between March 2015 and January of 2016. Sexton told the boy "that no one would believe him if he came forward," according to an affidavit.

Another boy said Sexton was in the process of becoming his legal guardian when he allegedly started to have sexual contact with the boy, who was 16, in Lakewood and then at another group home in Parker.

Sexton was fired by Savio House after his arrest in August.

“What these young men suffered at the hands of Sexton is reprehensible. Already going through difficulties in their young lives, they were subjected to unimaginable horrors at the hand of someone they had been groomed to trust and look up to,” District Attorney Pete Weir said in a statement. “Their courage and resilience allowed them to participate in this difficult process and help us to reach this sentence that will end Williams Sexton’s predatory exploitation of young men.”

Jean Lotus contributed to this report.

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