COLUMBUS (OH)
Ohio Capital Journal [Columbus OH]
December 9, 2024
By Susan Tebben
Sexual assault and rape survivors and those who support them came forward last week to urge lawmakers to pass a bill that would criminalize “grooming,” which they said could have saved lives had it existed years ago.
House Bill 322 creates the crime of “grooming” in Ohio, which would be charged as a first or second degree misdemeanor, except in circumstances where the victim is younger than 13 and other offenses are also committed, such as supplying alcohol or drugs to the victim or having a previous sexually oriented offense conviction. The combination of the crimes would result in felony charges, according to the bill.
Under the bill, grooming could be charged when an adult engages in a “pattern of conduct” with a minor that “would cause a reasonable adult” to believe the individual was working to “entice, coerce or solicit the minor to engage in ‘sexual activity,’” according to an analysis of the bill by the Legislative Service Commissions.
H.B. 322 also bans conduct to “prepare the minor to engage in sexual activity, and when the person’s purpose in engaging in the pattern of conduct is to prepare the minor to engage in sexual activity with the person or a third person” that would violate Ohio’s rape, sexual battery, unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, gross sexual imposition, sexual imposition, or importuning laws.
The measure had its second hearing in Ohio’s Senate Judiciary Committee last week, which included personal stories about cases in which a designated crime of “grooming” would have allowed survivors or law enforcement to take action against abusers.
“Some of these cases I have prosecuted and used the evidence of those statements, acts and conduct, but those cases come after the sex acts have taken place and after the damage has been done,” said Wood County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Dobson. “The painful irony is that, in the few cases which have come to me before actual sexual conduct has occurred, there is little I can do.”
Dobson said he has dealt with parents, step-parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches and even a school resource officer who “engaged in grooming,” but only some of the cases were open for prosecution.
But one particular brand of abuse was represented by survivors in the committee meeting more than others: abuse by Catholic priests.
Laura Gray spoke through tears about her devout Catholic parents, from whom she learned that it was considered an honor to host the parish priest in one’s house.
“I called ours The Monster,” Gray told the committee.
She described abuse perpetrated against her by this priest in her own home, and in car rides she took with the priest as her father and mother worked multiple jobs to make ends meet.
“Sometimes, the Monster would stop by and take me for a ride to pick up much needed and appreciated milk or bread for our family,” Gray said.
The Mentor, Ohio resident said she didn’t tell anyone what was happening, because the priest “had convinced me that no one would ever believe me.”
“I wanted to live and I loved my mother,” she said, of threats she said the priest made to her to ensure her silence.
Soon after the years of abuse, Gray said she found out the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland “was aware of his predatory and pedophile behavior prior to abusing me.”
She begged the committee to pass H.B. 322 “to protect vulnerable children.”
Rebecca Surendorff co-founded Ohioans for Child Protection on a foundation of outrage from one particular Catholic priest and the grooming that occurred in her school and her children’s school. Geoff Drew was a music minister at her elementary school before becoming a priest and eventually holding “superintendent-like power” at St. Ignatius School, which her children attended.
Drew would go on to plead guilty to multiple counts of rape in 2021. He was sentenced to seven years under a plea deal.GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.SUBSCRIBEThere were individuals who tried to report accusations against Drew to law enforcement, but without a grooming law in place, the allegations had nowhere to go.
“We can not rely on a patchwork of private institution policies with inconsistent enforcement to protect kids from sexual assault,” Surendorff told the committee.
Chris Graham saw adults at his childhood church, St. Joan of Arc in Powell, try to stop grooming attempts by priests, to the same end.
“Adults at our church saw the grooming, raised alarms, but because grooming isn’t yet a crime in Ohio, their hands were tied,” Graham said.
Graham and his friends became victims of abuse and “predatory behavior” within the church, and Graham said he is one of the few who is still alive to tell the story.
“Recognizing that if it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to abuse one,” Graham said in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “This legislation equips Ohioans with a crucial tool to identify and report suspicious behavior, potentially preventing child abuse and allowing the community to work together to identify patterns of behavior that would amount to the grooming of a child.”
The bill passed the Ohio House in April with a vote of 90 to 1, the only nay vote coming from Democratic state Rep. Michael Skindell. The Ohio Capital Journal reached out to Skindell to ask why he voted against the bill, but has not received a response.
The law has many supporters, but there is also concern that the bill needs some changes to keep groups who educate youth on sex and gender, especially LGBTQ+ youth, from being wrongfully accused of grooming.
When the bill was introduced in December 2023, the executive director of the Kaleidoscope Youth Center, Erin Upchurch, told WEWS in Cleveland she worried that “mentorship-type relationships” LGBTQ+ youth are looking for might be misconstrued by conservatives and those who stand against education about sexuality, gender identity, and sexual education in general.
The Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence gave testimony that praised the intent of the bill, but also said the term “grooming” has been “misappropriated in many spaces.” The group warned against language that could be “misconstrued to target those who do not have the purpose of sexually abusing children.”
“House Bill 322 should be amended to make extremely clear that each communication with a minor to ‘entice, coerce, solicit or prepare the minor to engage in sexual activity’ is illegal sexual activity,” Emily Gemar, director of public policy for the OAESV, said in her April 2 testimony to the House Criminal Justice Committee.