Garvie sentenced but
healing process continues

BY CHUCK TUCK | JOURNAL REPORTER After pleading guilty in May, Lake Stevens man Eugene Brian Garvie faced his sentencing this past week.

The prosecution had dropped a number of charges against Garvie back in May in exchange for a guilty plea to save the minor victims the horror and emotional stress of facing a trial.

Garvie had exploited minor boys during his time as a wrestling referee from 1989 until the discovery of sexually explicit materials on his computer by police last year.

At his sentencing, Superior Court Judge Thomas Wynne ordered an indeterminate sentencing with a minimum of 13 years served in prison for Garvie.

This type of sentencing is usually the most aggressive, and is for the most serious sex offenders.

“There are a handful of the most serious sex offenses,” said Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe by phone.

“Almost all of them are a class A felony which is the highest level of felony.”

Roe says that you effectively carry out the minimum sentence and in Gravies’ case it would be 13 or 14 years which is then brought before an indeterminate review board for review.

“When your sentence is up, and you’re reviewed, and your situation is reviewed by the indeterminate of sentence of review board to decide if they think you are safe to be released. If they decide you’re not, you can end up being held for the maximum sentence which for a class A felony is life,” Roe said.

Of children involved in child rape cases, a lot of them are victimized by someone they know and trust, making an already difficult situation more difficult to report.

“The one thing a lot of people don’t understand, is the ability to prove these cases almost always comes down to somebody’s child having to get up in court, in front of the guy, and testify in extremely graphic and detailed natures about things they don’t want to talk about. It’s not easy for them, it really isn’t,” Roe said.

He was very relieved and quite satisfied with Judge Wynne’s sentence placed on Garvie.

Roe says he see’s the anguish the children go through, and understands how tough it is for children who have been victimized to tell someone they trust, because often times they are wronged by someone they trust.

However, Roe stresses the importance of reporting these types of incidences.

“It is always important and crucial to report these types of activities because silence doesn’t help anybody,” Roe said. “We all are the same, whether we’re prosecutors, newspaper reporters, or just plain citizens. All of us value our kids; none us likes seeing bad things done to our kids.”

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