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	Alleged Victim Recounts Sex Acts with Minister By Andrew Clevenger The Charleston Gazette February 25, 2009 http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/200902240757 CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A Shrewsbury minister used his position as a father figure to lure a teenager into repeated sexual encounters, an alleged victim testified Tuesday in Kanawha Circuit Court. Sandy Martin Cook, former senior pastor at the Church of God, was indicted by a grand jury on multiple sexual abuse charges in September 2008. About a year earlier, several men came forward and accused Cook of assaulting them as teenagers in the 1990s. One of those men, Jose Strickland, now 26, said Tuesday that he initially regarded Cook as a role model when he first started attending services at his church. "At the time, I felt that it was a good thing, that I had met someone to look up to and to pattern my life after," Strickland said. The sexual contact between them started one day when Cook was giving him a ride home from church and asked the 12- or 13-year-old if he had ever masturbated, Strickland said. When he said he hadn't, Cook offered to masturbate him, and he agreed, Strickland said. The sexual activities expanded to include oral and anal sex, he said. "At the time, I was under the impression that that was the way a father was supposed to teach a son," said Strickland, whose father had died in 1990. Eventually the sexual encounters ended, and Strickland married, moved away and joined the Navy. Six months into his stretch, with his wife in the midst of a difficult third pregnancy, Strickland left the Navy and returned to West Virginia, he said. In summer 2007, while spending a week at the beach with his family, Strickland realized he needed to come forward and tell someone what Cook had done, he said. He met with a West Virginia State Police trooper at the detachment in Quincy on Aug. 3, 2007. "There is no reason for any of this to proceed, for him to be able to do this to another child," Strickland said. He told his story to Trooper M.J. Napier, and mentioned Michael "Andy" Lewis as another possible victim of Cook's, he said. Lewis, now a minister at the New Life Center in Cedar Grove, also told investigators that he had been abused by Cook, Kanawha County assistant prosecutor Michelle Drummond said during her opening statement. Lewis and a third man, Michael Bradley, are expected to testify that Cook molested them when they were teens, she said. Cook's manipulations included threatening to kill himself, Drummond told the jury. Defense attorney Jim Cagle said that his client is innocent of the "scurrilous" accusations that had been made against him more than a decade after the alleged incidents. Cagle told the jury that he intended to vigorously cross-examine Cook's accusers. "Just because you say it, doesn't make it so," he said. Although he has a right to remain silent, Cook will testify in his own defense, Cagle said. "He will deny vehemently these accusations," he said. Cagle said Lewis became bitter toward Cook after learning he could not take over as pastor of Shrewsbury Church of God. As Drummond listed the charges against him, Cook shook his head slightly as he sat at the defense table. When Cagle spoke, he nodded along in agreement. Cook broke down briefly as Cagle told the jury that because of the lengthy period of time that had elapsed, some witnesses would not be available to testify, including Cook's mother, who died in July 2008. "Acquit Sandy Cook and end this nightmare," Cagle said. The trial continues today in front of Judge Irene C. Berger. Reach Andrew Clevenger at acleven...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1723.
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