DALLAS (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Associated Press
DALLAS - On the opening day of a former Panhandle priest's sexual assault trial, his 20-year-old accuser testified that the cleric attacked him after offering to take care of him until he sobered up following a wedding both had attended.
"He told me to come into his room and he'd take care of me until I was through being sick," Beau Villegas testified on Thursday, adding that he had consumed more than 10 beers and several mixed drinks that evening in 2003. "He helped me kneel while I vomited. He ran warm water and washed my face."
The Rev. John A. Salazar then removed Villegas' pants and sexually assaulted the then 18-year-old, Villegas said.
"I was in some sort of shock, petrified, intoxicated," said Villegas, a former parishioner of Salazar's at Church of the Holy Spirit in Tulia who said he was so drunk following the wedding in the Dallas suburb of Irving that he couldn't stand up. "I didn't now how to react ... I could not have resisted if I had tried."