The trial, held in a court in the religious capital of the country, concluded on Monday night with a 20-year prison sentence for the doctor, after the victims presented a detailed account of the horrors they endured. It began as a story of jealousy. The psychiatrist S.I. had declined to accompany his wife on a trip to France that they had arranged the previous year.
Garrard Conley was enrolled in the now defunct Love in Action conversion therapy program in Memphis, Tennessee, at age 19. He was sent there by his parents after a classmate disclosed his sexual orientation to them following an assault. Conley grew up in a deeply religious family in rural Arkansas. He says he had to attend the program or face rejection from his family, and he ultimately agreed to enter the program.