Sex abuse trial begins of 'cult-like' church pastor, with parade of accusers to testify

By Aimee Green
Oregonian
April 13, 2015

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/04/sex-abuse_trial_begins_of_past.html

Mike Sperou, pastor of the North Clackamas Bible Community, is fighting accusations that he abused a girl in the mid-1990s.

Pastor Michael Sperou (far right) sits through a motions hearing in Multnomah County Circuit Court in February.

A Happy Valley pastor scheduled to go to trial this week to fight accusations that he sexually violated a kindergarten-age girl in the mid-1990s suffered a setback last week.

A judge will allow jurors to hear testimony from six other women who claim that pastor Michael Sperou sexually abused them, too, when they were children. But because the statute of limitations has passed for those alleged "prior bad acts," Sperou can't be prosecuted for them.

The statute of limitations hasn't passed for the youngest of Sperou's alleged victims, the subject of this week's trial.

Attorneys were selecting a jury Monday. Opening statements are expected to begin Tuesday. Sperou denies the allegations.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Cheryl Albrecht ruled Friday that jurors also will get to hear from other former members of the Southeast Bible Church. Those members say that the cultlike organization required them to live in a network of homes in Happy Valley and Portland, sometimes with entire families in a single bedroom and children living in closets.

Sperou also had absolute say over the food members ate, he drank heavily and used drugs and took as much as 25 percent of their incomes as a church tax, according to former members.

Ken Garrett, a former church member, testified during motions hearings last week that Sperou demanded large sums of money whenever he had a birthday. For example, when Sperou turned 40, he required church members to give him a gift of $4,000 -- $100 for each year he'd been alive. Church members scrimped together the money -- even held a garage sale to sell anything of value -- to come up with the cash, Garrett said.

The church today is called North Clackamas Bible Community.

During what's expected to be a 2 ½-week-long trial, Sperou, 64, will fight three counts of first-degree sexual penetration of the one girl. If convicted of all of the charges, he would face a minimum of 7 ½ years in prison.

Much of Sperou's defense is expected to be that the alleged victim in the case -- as well as the six other women who say they were abused as children -- are harboring false memories.

During days of motions hearings in February, March and April, current church members have filled the halls of the courthouse to show their support for Sperou.

Read stories by Oregonian/OregonLive Reporter Rick Bella about the allegations, the seven women who say Sperou molested them and Sperou's response.