By FireRescue1 staff
PROVO, Utah — A former assistant fire chief with the Kanosh Fire Department was sentenced this week to between one and 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple felony counts of forcible sexual abuse.
In 2018, Austin James Corry, 29, was charged with sexual assault and rape of a firefighter whom he supervised, reported KSL.com. The victim said at sentencing that it felt like he was abusing his authority as a supervisor to assault her at the fire department.
The assaults reportedly occurred between 2015 and 2018. The victim says she told the fire chief, Corry’s father, but that didn’t stop the abuse. So she recorded a sexual encounter where she repeatedly asked Corry to stop, but he did not, and shared the recording with police.
The victim described at sentencing that her life “has changed in every way.” She left her job and moved out of state. She said she feels embarrassed and humiliated, and is constantly angry.
“I want you to feel what it’s like to feel the way that I do every single day, the way I’ve felt for the last seven years and to know what you have done is not OK,” she told Corry at sentencing. “And I am not all right. Austin, you knew what you did to me. You knew what you did was wrong. You knew I didn’t want it to happen but continued to do it. You continually apologized to me and told me you would never do it again, (it) would not ever happen again.”
Corry’s father, Scott Corry, pleaded guilty to obstructing justice for not looking into the victim’s accusations. He served 12 months of probation.
Austin Corry was also charged with raping a woman in November 2016. Charges in that case were dropped as part of the plea deal in this case.
When Corry spoke at the sentencing, he said he was having an affair with the victim and that he considered things to be consensual. Judge Anthony Howell said that Corry abused his supervisor position and feels that Corry is blaming the victim and not taking responsibility for his actions.
Howell recommended that the sentences for each of the four counts of assault and rape run concurrently.