Chicago Daily Herald

June 8, 2005 Wednesday
Lake Edition; Cook Edition

Psychiatrist gets 7-year sentence for sex abuse

BYLINE: Tony Gordon, Daily Herald Legal Affairs Writer

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 230 words

A Long Grove psychiatrist was sentenced to seven years in prison Tuesday after admitting he molested three young boys.
Gary Almy, 61, molested the boys while they were attending the Truth in Action Academy that Almy ran in his home at 3115 Old McHenry Road.
The academy was a privately operated counseling center for troubled youths.
Lake County Assistant State’s Attorney Ken LaRue said Almy plead guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse in the three cases that occurred between October 2000 and October 2003.
He was charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy in October 2000, a 14-year-old boy in summer 2003 and a second 14-year-old boy in October 2003.
After receiving a tip from employees of the academy, detectives from the sheriff’s office and the Lake County Children’s Advocacy Center opened an investigation of Almy.
He was charged in February after police said he confessed.
Almy is the former chief of staff at the VA Medical Center in North Chicago who resigned in 1991 after an investigation into patient deaths revealed they received substandard care.
He was also a staff psychiatrist for the Lydia Home Association, a child welfare agency in Chicago, until he resigned shortly after his arrest.
Almy is the target of civil lawsuits filed by each victim that seek more than $50,000 in damages.
Almy could have faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted of all three attacks.