Pella Pastor Flattered, Forced Himself on Female Parishioners, Jurors Told in Sex Abuse Trial

Des Moines Register
August 14, 2012

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2012/08/14/pella-pastor-flattered-forced-himself-on-female-parishioners-jurors-told-in-sex-abuse-trial/

A former Pella pastor used his position to spin a web of secrets and manipulate four of his troubled, deeply religious parishioners into sex, jurors were told this morning.

Iowa prosecutors say Patrick Edouard, then the brilliant, popular leader of Pella’s Covenant Reformed Church, raped three of the women and manipulated all four in violation of a state law that prohibits sex between people who provide mental health counseling and the people they counsel.

Assistant Iowa Attorney General Laura Roan said Edouard’s pursuit of vulnerable women in his congregation stretched from 2006, when he pushed a Des Moines lawyer to the floor of his basement study after she sought advice over infertility issues and what motherhood might mean for her career, to 2010, when the woman’s brother-in-law came home early one day. Edouard’s van was in the man’s driveway, Roan said, and the man’s wife – the lawyer’s sister-in-law – was buttoning her blouse.

In both those instances and two others, Edouard used a combination of flattery and concern over the women’s personal problems to lure the women in, Roan said. Each woman then was told that they were obligated to keep the relationship secret for the good of their families, Edouard’s wife and the church. Most soon found themselves in long-term illicit affairs.

Edouard, a native Haitian who moved to Pella from Toronto in 2003, resigned his job in Deceember 2010 after church leaders confronted him with allegations of marital infidelity.

“All of these women have stories where they are responsible for making the perfect pastor fall,” Roan told jurors in opening statements. “But they were really just responsible for their part of ‘the secret.’

“These women were unwitting,” Roan said. “They became active participants. They became stuck, and they were in his trap. … He knew all of their private sufferings.”

Defense attorney Angela Campbell responded by quickly acknowledging the sexual relationships and their inappropriateness. Edouard is not challenging the fact that he was properly fired for his actions and doesn’t deserve to be a pastor anymore, Campbell said. But she stressed that that’s different from committing a crime.

Witnesses over parts of the next two weeks will testify that none of the three women Edouard is accused of raping reported it to anyone for more than a year, Campbell said. All had been told before the initial incident “that he was interested in them” and had begun discussing sexual matters with Edouard over the phone, Campbell said.

“None of these women said she was raped until after she found out that he had an affair with another woman,” Campbell told jurors.

Edouard’s lawyers also plan to contest the appropriateness of the sexual exploitation charges. Campbell said witnesses will show that Edouard was not providing counseling and that the women who came to visit him in the basement study had no “mental health disorder or dysfunction” that required any.

The trial, which was moved to Dallas County due to extensive pretrial publicity in Marion County, is expected to run into the middle of next week.