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	Arraignment Postponed in LA Church Abuse Case Lompoc Record [Los Angeles CA] January 5, 2007 http://www.lompocrecord.com/articles/2007/01/05/ap-state-ca/d8meqrv81.txt Los Angeles - Arraignment was postponed Thursday for a former Catholic priest already charged in a child molestation case who faces new allegations involving a second boy. Prosecutors allege Michael Stephen Baker, 59, had sex with a 15-year-old boy between March 1996 and September 1998, according to an amended felony complaint. The new charges include one count of oral copulation of a person under 18, one count of sexual penetration of an unconscious person with a foreign object and three counts of sodomy of a person under 18. Superior Court Commissioner Catherine Pratt granted defense attorney Donald H. Steier's request to postpone the arraignment so he could have time to prepare a legal challenge. A hearing was scheduled for Feb. 13. Steier said outside court that he was surprised by the new allegations. "This same young man had steadfastly denied any inappropriate touching for the past 10 years and now he's making these allegations," Steier said. Baker has already pleaded not guilty to eight acts of oral copulation involving another boy. The allegation span a decade, beginning when the boy was 7. The charges carry a possible sentence of 19 years in state prison. Baker was arrested in January 2005 at Los Angeles International Airport as he returned from a vacation in Thailand. Officials from the Los Angeles Archdiocese have said Baker was removed from the church in 2000. Baker was first charged in September 2002 in a case involving a youth who had been an altar boy at St. Paul of the Cross Church in La Mirada. That case, along with those against nearly a dozen other former Los Angeles area priests, was dropped in 2003 due to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving the statute of limitations on child molestation. The archdiocese said in December it would pay $60 million to settle 45 lawsuits by people who claimed they were abused by priests, but as many as 485 others are still pending. A service of the Associated Press(AP) Baker was arrested in January 2005 at Los Angeles International Airport as he returned from a vacation in Thailand.
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