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	Testimony Continues in Priest Trial By JP Eichmiller The Coloradoan [Fort Collins CO] March 21, 2007 http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070321/UPDATES01/70321018 Prosecutors in the case against former Fort Collins priest Timothy Joseph Evans presented a second witness this morning who claimed to be a victim of sexual misconduct at the hands of the priest. The accuser, who was 16 at the time of the 1996 incident, described a meeting he thought was intended to discuss self-esteem and religious issues with Evans at the priest's office at Spirit of Christ Parish in Arvada. The prosecution witness described lying on Evan's office floor per the priest's instruction for what he thought was a therapy session. Evans, the accuser described, proceeded to caress his body, starting at the boy's chest, moving down to his legs and eventually moving his hands up and under the boy's shorts. "As he was coming back up my leg, he went under my shorts and actually touched my scrotum," the accuser said during today's second day of the trial. "He was where he shouldn't have been." The Coloradoan does not identify the names of alleged sexual assault victims. Today's witness was the second person to testify in the case against Evans. The former priest, who has been removed from his duties by the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver, is also facing charges for sexual misconduct against a minor in Jefferson County. That trial is set to begin April 2. Prosecuting Deputy District Attorney Leah Bishopalso presented a Fort Collins police officer who has worked the case and the mother of the first accuser as witnesses. Ginger Nohs, formerly an officer with Fort Collins police's major crimes unit, described first contacting one of the accusers and then setting up a taped phone conversation between the accuser and Evans in December 2004. Defense Attorney Joseph Gavaldon noted inconsistencies in Nohs' statements. Nohs' initial police report described the victim as being older than 18 during the second encounter with Evans. In that report, the accuser described the priest pinning him down before reaching his hand under the alleged victim's shirt and then into his groin area. "There was no doubt in my mind that both incidents occurred before (the accuser's) 18th birthday," Nohs said. Later in the morning, the first accuser's mother, who is a Fort Collins resident and member of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, where Evan's formerly was a priest, described her strong ties to the Catholic Church and her feelings upon discovery of the alleged incidents. "(The people) are the church, the (the priests) are the leaders we look to for guidance," she said. "There was not a whole lot they could do wrong. When they walked into a room, you stood up." The accuser's mother later described a lunch meeting at Schmidt's Bakery in Loveland she had with Evans in 2003 in which she said the former priest first gave her a hint that something between he and her son had occurred. "Even if something had happened, (the accuser) was over the age of 18," she described Evans as telling her. "I was sick, physically and in my heart," she said through a cracking voice. "I was let down by someone I held above a lot of other people." Contact: JPEichmiller@coloradoan.com
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