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	Stricter Abuse Vigilance Pledged By Leslie Boyd Citizen-Times December 4, 2007 http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071204/NEWS01/71203095/1250 ASHEVILLE – The Asheville-based Baptist Ministers Union president pledged Monday to find more ways to help churches protect children from abuse. The Rev. L.C. Ray said he has met stinging criticism since appearing as a character witness for a church youth leader who pleaded guilty last week to five counts of indecent liberties with a child. The plea bargain sent Leonard Smith, 53, a former music director who worked with youths at Sycamore Temple Church of God in Christ in Asheville, to jail for at least 14 years. It also allowed him to avoid three more serious charges that could have sent him to prison for decades. Ray said he did not know the charges facing his longtime friend until he was in the courtroom, despite media attention given the case. "I felt trapped," he said. "I would never, never condone what happened." Ray, who co-founded the mentoring agency One Youth at a Time said he hopes to take what happened and turn it around by using the heightened awareness of abuse to educate parents and children in the churches. "So many churches don't have anything in place," said Ray, pastor of Greater Mount Zion Baptist Church. "We need to change that so our children are safe. These people are out there, and we have to protect our children." Part of the problem, child advocates say, is that cases often are pleaded down to less serious charges and the perpetrators spend little time in prison. Buncombe County District Attorney Ron Moore said after the sentencing Thursday afternoon that child molestation cases are particularly difficult to try because witnesses can be unreliable. All 12 members of a jury must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. "Some cases are 30 years old," Moore said. "This isn't 'CSI,' so we don't have forensic evidence, and we don't want to have someone walk free." Most sex-abuse cases across the country are settled with plea bargains, said Grier Weeks, director of the Asheville-based National Association to Protect Children. "Prosecutors are too afraid that a jury won't convict," Weeks said. Barbara Anderson, director of Our VOICE, Buncombe County's sexual assault crisis center, said she is disturbed by the number of people who believe child sex abuse doesn't happen to people they know. "It happens," she said. "We can't keep pretending it doesn't." Many small churches can't afford to do background checks on everyone who work with children, but Anderson said all of them should have policies in place requiring that more than one adult be present at all youth activities. But most important, Anderson said, all parents and church leaders — anyone who works with children — must become educated about abuse and teach children to speak up when someone does something they're uncomfortable with. "It has to be OK to raise questions about someone," she said. Ray said he and others in the Baptist Ministers Union plan to take action to educate and protect the children in their churches. "I've learned children aren't safe just because they're in church," Ray said. "I always thought this was something that happened in other places, in big urban settings. Now we know we have to educate our children to speak up, and then we have to believe them." Contact Leslie Boyd at 828-232-2922, via e-mail at lboyd@ashevill.gannett.com
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