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	Third Former Official of Church Facing Charges Chicago Tribune [Downers Grove IL] March 12, 2006 http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/blattel12.html A third former official of an area church is facing trial on sexual abuse charges, this one involving an alleged 2004 attack on an elderly woman in Alabama. The son and brother-in-law of the accused man, Howard L. Blattel, confirmed he was a parishioner of Marquette Manor Baptist Church in Downers Grove for more than 20 years and served there as a deacon during the late 1990s and earlier this decade. Blattel, 65, a former Bolingbrook resident, is charged with first-degree sexual abuse in Gadsden, Ala., where he has lived since 2003. He is accused of molesting a now 89-year-old woman there in August 2004, according to records in the Etowah County, Ala., clerk's office and an Oct. 5, 2004 report in the Gadsden Times newspaper. Two other former officials of Marquette Manor and its academy, located on the 300 block of 75th St., were indicted earlier this month by a DuPage County grand jury on sex-related charges. Former youth pastor Edward D. Greene, 35, now of North Carolina, is charged with criminal sexual assault, a felony, for allegedly molesting an underage female church member between April and June 1998. Aurora resident John Puga is charged with criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse, both felonies. Puga, 33, who had been a boys' basketball coach at Marquette Manor Academy, is accused of molesting an underage female parishioner between November 2001 and May 2002. Local authorities also are pursuing felony sexual misconduct charges against a fourth former church leader, another deacon who has yet to be identified. The allegations against Blattel were confirmed by his son, Kevin L. Blattel, and a brother-in-law, Kenneth K. Keelin. "We had to move unexpectedly several times," Kevin Blattel said of his family. In light of his father's legal trouble, "all of a sudden it starts to make sense," he said. "I thought everything was normal," he told the Naperville Sun. "Then one day in 1991, I found out that (Howard Blattel) had tried to molest my wife. "We were on pins and needles for 14 years" until the summer of 2004, when his father was arrested in the Gadsden attack, Kevin Blattel said. Several female family members subsequently came forward to tell of having been molested by Howard Blattel over the years, Kevin Blattel said. "My father insists on fighting the charges and will admit no wrongdoing," said Kevin Blattel, who is estranged from his father. It was "just amazing to me how a monster can hide for years, being on a deacon board and a so-called Christian, and have this pattern of behavior."
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