May 17, 2001- A former St. Thomas resort worker was sentenced in Territorial Court Wednesday to five years in jail on his conviction of sexually molesting a 9-year-old girl in the course of his employment as a children's activities supersvisor.
Bryan Hornby, 23, was employed by the Wyndham Sugar Bay Beach Resort in its Kids Club program at the time of the incident, in April 2000. A Territorial Court jury convicted him in March of unlawful sexual contact with the girl, who was staying at the resort with her parents on a week's vacation.
Also on Wednesday, authorities in Minnesota said they are interested in having Hornby returned there to face similar charges in connection with an unrelated incident.
At his sentencing hearing, Hornby maintained that he had done no wrong. He told Judge Rhys Hodge that he loves children and it was "only love I wanted to show them."
Hornby, a native of Zimbabwe, is to serve his sentence at St. Croix's Golden Grove Correctional Facility.
In an unrelated Territorial Court case Wednesday, a 20-year-old man was convicted of assault with intent to kill. The case stemmed from a 1999 incident on Magens Bay in which defendant Rosokemo Archibald stabbed a teenager. Archibald claimed self-defense, maintaining the other youth had struck him in the head with a bottle first. The jury returned the guilty verdict two hours after it began deliberations. Archibald could face up to 15 years in jail on the conviction.