MINNESOTA
New York Daily News
Minnesota man charged with luring boy for sex through Craigslist, wanted to be his ‘mentor’: defense attorney
BY RACHELLE BLIDNER
A Minnesota man who is accused of trying to lure a minor for sex through Craigslist was trying to protect the boy from the same kind of abuse he suffered as a child, his attorney said Monday.
Stephen Joseph Schulz, 56, is on trial in Ramsey County District Court after allegedly arranging to meet up with someone he thought was a 15-year-old boy, but who was really an undercover St. Paul police officer.
Schulz was charged with sexual soliciting a child via the Internet in April 2013.
Defense attorney Paul Engh said Schulz “wanted to meet the child, mentor him and prevent another tragedy” after being molested by a priest as a child, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Engh said Schulz was sexually abused when he was about 13 or 14 by a Roman Catholic priest from his family’s church in Milwaukee. The priest allegedly molested Schulz and a friend on a trip to Geneva, Wisc., and tried to have anal sex with Schulz at a later date.
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