Ex-pastor pleads guilty

Wednesday, July 23, 2003 | 10:53 a.m.

A former counselor and pastor accused of sexually assaulting a patient with multiple personalities pleaded guilty Tuesday as the result of plea agreement.

William Robert Hough, who worked at the West Valley Counseling Center in Las Vegas, pleaded guilty to one count of felony abuse of a client before District Judge Michael Cherry.

According to the terms of the agreement, if he is sentenced to probation and successfully completes the probation, prosecutors will allow him to withdraw his felony guilty plea and plead guilty to gross misdemeanor abuse of a client and be given credit on his sentence for time served.

The agreed-upon probation would be for five years, Deputy Public Defender Jordan Savage said. Otherwise, a felony conviction on the charge could carry a one- to six-year sentence.

One of Hough's patients said Hough had diagnosed her as having disassociative identity disorder, or split personalities, and was treating her when they began having a sexual relationship.

During a preliminary hearing in September 2001, she said Hough engaged in sex acts with two of her personalities -- a child and a young woman of an unknown age who was in love with Hough.

Defense attorneys had contended that the patient did not have a multiple personality disorder, making the sexual relationship between the two consensual.