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	Priest's Day in Court Delayed By Jon Ostendorff Citizen-Times September 13, 2007 http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770912120 Waynesville — A judge Wednesday agreed to postpone the court date for an Episcopal priest charged with sex solicitation in a Waynesville park restroom. The Rev. Michael Penland will appear Nov. 7 for a hearing on the misdemeanor charge. He resigned from his post as director of youth ministry at a church in Florida on Sunday. Web Extras: Multimedia & Related Content Arrest report for Episcopal priest Michael Penland. (127 KB) Penland listed an address in Candler's Biltmore Lake development at the time of his arrest and had worked at a church in Tryon. New police records in the case allege Penland told a detective the day he was arrested that he had been having homosexual affairs for about five years. Police said he also told the detective he had been married for 17 years, and that his wife and church did not know about his sexual activities, according to an arrest report filed in the case. Penland said he was afraid he would lose his job because of the charge, according to police. The Florida church suspended him after learning about the misdemeanor charge last week. Postponing court hearings — especially misdemeanor charges — isn't unusual. District Attorney Michael Bonfoey said Penland's attorney, Al Messer, of Asheville, had faxed a request to move the case to November before the hearing Wednesday. Bonfoey said his prosecutors had no objection. He said a defendant or his attorney usually has to be in court to ask for a hearing to be postponed unless the defendant reaches an agreement with the prosecutor's office before the hearing. In this case, Bonfoey said, his office agreed that neither Penland nor his lawyer needed to be there to file the motion. Penland was arrested in June during a three-month undercover police investigation at two city park bathrooms. Six other men were charged in Operation Summer Heat. Some of the men were caught offering sex or exposing themselves to undercover officers while children were using a nearby playground, police said. Contact Jon Ostendorff at 828-452-1467, via e-mail at jostendo@ashevill.gannett.com.
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