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| Man Testifies to Relations with Priest By Alan Gustafson Statesman Journal May 4, 2007 http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070504/NEWS/705040314/1001 Portland — A former inmate at the Oregon State Correctional Institution testified Thursday that the Rev. Michael Sprauer had a sexual relationship with him, and supplied him with cocaine and marijuana while Sprauer was chaplain at the Salem prison in the 1990s. Thomas Ha, 39, now on parole, said Sprauer engaged in multiple acts of oral sex and mutual masturbation with him in a prison chapel bathroom. Ha described their sex acts as consensual and said they occurred during a period of years. "He said he loved me and would take care of me," Ha said. The former inmate also claimed that Sprauer provided him with smuggled supplies of cocaine, marijuana and tobacco. "He brought it in for me," Ha said. According to Ha's account, he was sent to disciplinary segregation after corrections officers caught him with drugs provided by the chaplain. He said he never told prison officials that Sprauer gave him the drugs. Ha's allegations surfaced in testimony he gave — without the jury present — in a sex-abuse trial against the Salem priest. The case being presented to the jury hinges on allegations by three men who say Sprauer sexually abused them as children in the 1970s while they were incarcerated at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn. Salem attorney Daniel Gatti, representing Sprauer's accusers, said Ha's testimony demonstrates that Sprauer had a long track record of sexual misconduct. "The reality is, he's got a dual life," Gatti said. After hearing Ha's testimony, the trial judge ruled that he would not allow Ha to take the witness stand in front of the jury. That means his story won't be heard by the jury of seven women and five men. In excluding Ha's testimony, Judge Marshall Amiton said the allegations of consensual sex between Ha and Sprauer at the adult prison raised issues substantially different than the sex-abuse allegations at the crux of the civil case. The judge also said that he didn't want to unfairly prejudice the jury against Sprauer. Six men took the witness stand Thursday to tell the jury how they were sexually abused by Sprauer at the juvenile corrections facility in the 1970s. They described incidents of oral sex and mutual masturbation. As they told it, much of the abuse occurred in isolation cells. Five of the men who testified Thursday have lawsuits pending against Sprauer in Marion County. In all, at least 15 men claim Sprauer sexually abused them at MacLaren. Rodney Kessler, 50, angrily rejected assertions made by Sprauer's defense lawyers that the sexual abuse allegations are nothing but a scam by ex-convicts. When Gatti asked Kessler if he had any idea why state attorneys would call it a scam, Kessler glared across the courtroom at Sprauer and said: "Because they're trying to protect that sick son of a bitch." Robert Paul Jr., of Salem, one of the three plaintiffs in the Portland case, wept Thursday as he recounted being sexually abused three times in the chaplain's office at MacLaren. "Don't tell anybody," Paul accused Sprauer of telling him, "this is our little secret."
Contact: agustafs@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6709 |
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