David Evans, seen in this Nov. 13 file photo, was sentenced Monday to two life terms. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

An audible gasp escaped from the second row in the inmate section of District Judge Nancy Saitta's courtroom on Monday as prosecutor Tom Moreo explained the crimes of Dr. David Evans.

Evans had volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters because he knew it would enable him to molest a boy, Moreo said as he asked Saitta to give him the maximum sentence.

"David Evans is a serial pedophile. He's a danger to every little person who walks," Moreo said.

Evans, 34, has acknowledged that when he signed up with the organization to be a mentor he was assigned a 9-year-old boy. During a three-month period ending in December 2004, Evans made the boy engage in sexual acts with him, which he videotaped.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault for his molestation of the child, and on Monday Saitta sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences, with parole possible after 40 years, the maximum sentence.

"They were clean, shiny, little human beings that you were harming," Saitta said. "You were taking away the soul of this little boy."

Investigators found nearly 4,000 images of child pornography and movies on a computer belonging to Evans. Some photos on the computer showed him with two boys who have been identified and interviewed by police.

A further examination of the computer revealed photos with two other boys, ages 10 to 12, in sexually explicit situations, and authorities suspect Evans took the photos while he was attending medical school in Grenada.

"We literally found a history of years and years and years and years of his actions," Moreo said.

Outside the courtroom, Moreo said the state was only able to identify the 9-year-old victim and another child in California, where Evans is facing similar charges.

Last month, he was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison for the pornographic pictures he took of the child and those he possessed of other children. His state sentence will run concurrent with the federal sentence, which Evans' attorney said, will probably be fulfilled in a federal penitentiary in North Carolina that specializes in treatment of sex offenders.

Evans told the court and the victim's family that he was sorry and hopes to spend the rest of his life trying to make amends. He said he will work every day in prison, on self-improvement and in therapy, to better understand his problem.

"Such an act will never be repeated again. This is the most important promise I've ever made," Evans said, pausing to regain composure.

Moreo countered that " 'I'm sorry' isn't worth crap in this case."

He said Evans went online and spoke with other pedophiles, "so that they could do what he did."

Evans has been a danger to children all his life, Moreo said.

The boy's mother and grandfather had a chance to address the court and asked for the maximum sentence.

After a divorce, the mother of the boy took him to the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization to find him a mentor. She indicated that mentoring for the boy was suggested during counseling the boy was receiving at the time.

She said she trusted Evans.

"He took everything that he knew about us ... he used the situation to prey on my son. My son and I are at the point where we will never trust anybody again," she said.

Her son is now 12, but has regressed emotionally, she said, describing how he would sometimes crawl into her lap and curl up in a ball and say "help me mommy."

She said she had to leave work early one day to pick him up from day care because he was, "hiding behind a metal cabinet, crunched up in a ball crying."

She has lost jobs because of this, lost sleep and lost the "happy, carefree" boy she knew before they met Evans.

The boy's grandfather explained that Evans was a trusted friend of the family. On at least one occasion he had been invited to a gathering, he said.

The boy is failing school, distrusts all men and has said he wants to die, the grandfather said. He said that since Evans' arrest two years ago, he has had to work to regain the boy's trust.

Evans told the court that he never molested any of his patients while working as a pediatric physician at University Medical Center and Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. But Judge Saitta reminded him that the mother of one of Evans' victims had asked him at one point to look at a rash on her son's genitals.

"He also did come in for a flu shot," Evans added.

Evans' lawyer told Saitta that Evans is a modern Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Dr. Evans "was a successful individual with the world at his feet," said his attorney Gabriel Grasso. A graduate of Brigham Young University, Evans was an Eagle Scout and a pediatric resident of the University of Nevada School of Medicine.

But there is a second Evans, "an evil individual who can't control his urges against young boys," he said, as he asked Saitta for leniency. Grasso had hoped to see Evans released in 27 years.

Pedophilia "is an illness," Grasso said.

"I think Mr. Evans is a person who can be treated," he said.