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	Family Relates Laporte Minister's Abuse of Teen By Mark Taylor Gary Post-Tribune September 14, 2008 http://www.post-trib.com/news/1162418,lpjohndoe.article He's a strapping teenager with clear, blue-gray eyes, short-cropped cinnamon hair and an easy smile belying the hell he's suffered over the past five years. From the age of 11, the boy known only as John Doe in LaPorte County court records was repeatedly sexually abused by a youth minister he trusted from his church, Mark Comford. Comford, 24, also of LaPorte, pleaded guilty Sept. 5 in LaPorte Superior Court to abusing the now 14-year-old, leaving a disturbed youth and an anguished trail of young and vulnerable children and broken families in his wake. Sometimes Comford's abuse took place on the grounds of Faith Baptist Church in LaPorte, a small congregation located across from the LaPorte County Fairgrounds where his grandfather, the Rev. Jack Cox, served as pastor. Comford, a janitor at Purdue University North Central before his July 2007 arrest, was a married youth minister and leader at Faith Baptist. Faith Baptist is a yellow, concrete block building with a tall, white spire stretching toward the heavens. The house of worship is located in a bucolic setting, with a stand of tall pines greeting visitors near the entrance and grove of oaks providing shelter. It's easy to imagine this as a reflective and spiritual refuge without knowing the history of abuse that transpired here. In a grassy field behind the church, an L-shaped building contains the KF Club and the Teen Center where Mark Comford led classes as a youth minister and molested young boys. Comford was originally charged with multiple counts of sexually molesting several minors, as a well as a mentally retarded man. And although he has pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing, much healing remains. Youth and church John Doe was particularly susceptible to Comford's overtures. The eighth-grader's mother died when he was 4. He doesn't remember her. She was stricken with cancer as a child, spent much of her life in a wheelchair and succumbed to the disease at 23. She never revealed his father's identity and married another man while pregnant with him. His stepfather was out of his life even before his mother died. During and after his mother's illness, his maternal grandmother helped raised him until she died nearly four years ago. Since then his mother's sister, described in the lawsuit with the alias Jane Roe, and her husband have taken John Doe into their home. "I'm his third mom," said the aunt, a 31-year-old nurse, wife and mother who attended the same Faith Baptist church as a girl. "My aunt took me to this church when I was old enough to walk. It seemed natural that when my aunt asked to take the boys (two of her husband's sons from a previous marriage, their own son and John Doe, who came to live with them) that we agreed. My aunt was a Sunday school teacher there." Jane Roe said she holds warm childhood memories of attending the small church and how the 200-member congregation would swell to double that number on Christmas and Easter. "It was a small church that felt like a little family," she remembered from her youth. "I thought of it as a safe place." Her aunt took the boys to services and Sunday School, and Cox transported them when her aunt vacationed, a routine that continued for several years. The boys also attended summer Bible School and often had church-sponsored trips and sleepovers. She said the pastor's grandson almost immediately gravitated to John Doe, showering him with attention and gifts he told the youth to conceal from his adopted family. Jane Roe recalled Comford's parents from when she attended the church, with his mother, Cox's daughter, playing church organ. "I never noticed anything unusual about the family," she said. Jane Roe said when her sister was dying Pastor Cox came to help her. "He knows my family very well," she said. Almost four years ago Jane Roe said Comford called to ask if her sons, including John Doe, could attend a birthday party after church. He gave her nephew an expensive present and told him to lie about it. "I confronted Mark and told him I didn't appreciate him telling my sons to lie. For months we didn't allow Mark around the boys," she said. She said early on she called her aunt to share her doubts. "I was suspicious and told her why," Jane Roe said. "You'd have thought I'd stabbed her with a knife." But then, John Doe's girlfriend and her mother prevailed upon Roe. The girlfriend's brother attended, too, and by this time Comford had married. Her aunt would bring the other boys home after church services, but John Doe would remain to rake leaves, mow the expansive lawn or shovel sidewalks and driveways there. Comford would drop him off later. "We figured it was OK," Roe said. It all seemed so stable for a boy who'd suffered such instability. Bad news and worse By mid-2007, Comford's repeated molestations were near their end but no one knew the full extent. Several weeks before Comford's arrest, armed county detectives arrived and told Jane Roe that her nephew and three other victims -- two young boys and a 32-year-old mentally challenged male -- had also been sexually abused by Comford. "During that time, my son (John Doe) remembers cops in the back of the church," she said. "And Pastor Cox knew he hung around with Mark, but didn't say anything to us." She also learned that one year before Comford's July 2007 arrest, another mother in the church had reported Comford to Child Protective Services for molesting boys, Jane Roe said. Jane Roe learned nothing of Comford's alleged sexual abuse for another year. After Comford's arrest, Jane Roe said she contacted Child Protective Services to get copies of the original report. She discovered that she knew the other boys and their parents, one of whom included a close relative of Comford's wife, who has since divorced him and moved out of state. "She never called me to tell me Mark had molested her relative, but she confronted my son to ask if he was messing around with her husband. He was just a kid," she said. Nightmares and counseling While Comford is awaiting an Oct. 17 sentencing, his actions continue to haunt John Doe. The youth has attempted suicide twice and suffered several psychotic episodes. He experiences nightmares and horrible dreams and resides in a state institution in South Bend. Jane Roe said she worries that after Comford victimized her neph-ew, a bureaucratic and often uncaring system continues to punish him. He is allowed minimal family visitation time, although that has increased to two, nine-hour visits on weekends. She worries that he is not receiving the appropriate counseling and therapy. "Child Protection Services promised counseling. He needs help to deal with this. He has this uncontrollable anger and rage. Sometimes he starts yelling and screaming. He's slashed his arms with butter knives and carved holes in the walls. His behavior sometimes has been horrible," she said. She said her nephew has been reclusive and doesn't talk much. He has gotten into fights and his grades declined. He's withdrawn from his friends. "None of this happened before Mark came along," she said. Jane Roe said she was infuriated by what she called the light sentence LaPorte County prosecutors negotiated in a plea agreement with Comford and his attorneys. Comford pleaded guilty to a single count each of Class B and Class C felony child molesting for a 20-year sentence in prison and eight-year probation to be served concurrently. While the agreement appears lengthy, the law allows good behavior time to count one day for each served. With the time Comford has already served awaiting trial, he could be released from prison in eight years. The plea agreement is subject to judicial approval. "He threatened to kill my son (John Doe) and our family if he ever talked to anyone," Jane Roe said. "I think the sentence is kind of light. He could be walking the streets in a few years." She said the prospect of Comford's early release terrifies her nephew. "He has horrible dreams and awakens with his arms bleeding from scratching himself," she said. Throughout the process, she said, Cox has never apologized, offered help or even acknowledged the harm his grandson's abuse has caused her nephew and family. Jane Roe said the incident has splintered her family. Her father and aunt no longer speak with her and some in the church even have blamed John Doe for the abuse, alleging it was consensual sex. "I've seen Pastor Cox on the street four or five times since this has become public," she said. "When he sees me, he puts his head down and walks the other way. Publicly he's denied that his grandson was ever a youth leader at the church. But I found church fliers with Mark identified in those roles." Not only has the county's victim-assistance fund failed to help John Doe by paying for counseling and therapy, La-Porte County Magistrate Richard Stalbrink ordered Jane Roe to pay $12,000 for the cost of her nephew's incarceration in the county youth detention center, a move that Superior Court Judge Thomas Alevizos overruled. "He's on his seventh counselor now. He's been at (the state institution) for three months and has only seen a counselor five times. I think he regrets ever giving a statement. Mark's in jail, but (John Doe) feels like he's being punished, too, like he shouldn't have told," she said. Jane Roe said the stress and challenge has caused her to miss work for seven months. While she formerly held a higher paying position in a hospital, now she works in a nursing home for less. "I feel like I've aged 10 years in the last 12 months," she said. "While my husband has been very supportive, sometimes it felt like I was fighting the world." Sometimes she blames herself. "I think he (John Doe) was vulnerable. He wanted that male bonding, that father he never knew. And Mark knew just how to manipulate him. He bought him Heelies, those skate gym shoes, a paintball gun and a Web cam for his computer. He hid all this from us," she said. John Doe, who was home recently on a weekend pass from the state institution, had previously spent months in a juvenile detention center. "I'm trying to make his life normal and not spoil him, so when he gets out, he won't expect to be catered to," Jane Roe said. "I can tell he's not happy there. He calls the food 'unidentifiable' and misses his family when he's gone. When he comes home he gets to pick what we have for dinner or where we go to eat." Sentencing and prison Phone calls to Cox were not returned. Comford, who is in LaPorte County Jail awaiting sentencing, could not be reached for comment. His Michigan City attorney Kurt Earnst, of Braje, Nelson and Janes, said it's premature to say whether the plea agreement he crafted for Comford achieves justice. "That's for each person to decide in his own mind," Earnst said. "We entered into this agreement after a very comprehensive negotiation and my client and I feel comfortable with it." Earnst declined further comment, saying it would be inappropriate to comment before sentencing. LaPorte County Deputy Prosecutor Jennifer Evans said prosecutors are not allowed to comment on plea agreements until after sentencing. Evans, who is running for a county judge position, said LaPorte Superior Judge Thomas Alevizos can either accept or reject the plea agreement. She said the agreement was reached without input from the victims or their families, but noted that they can address the judge and defendant at sentencing. She admitted that with good behavior, Comford could be released within nine years. She said child-molesting cases are the most difficult to prosecute because they require child-abuse victims to attend trials to allow defendants to confront their accusers. "The ability of each individual child to withstand a trial is a factor in every child-molesting case," Evans said, as well as other evidentiary issues and the defendant's prior criminal record. "Is nine years a fair sentence for a man who confessed to molesting four boys? Of course not," she said. "But prosecutors have to look at every single factor." Jane Roe looks at one factor, the boy she calls her son. "I hope Mark gets a plea bargain for a much longer sentence," she said. "Even double that 20-year sentence wouldn't be enough for what he did. Maybe if that happens we can put this behind us and move forward."
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