By JP Eichmiller
The Coloradoan [Fort Collins CO]
March 22, 2007
http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070322/NEWS01/703220345/1002
Three male accusers testified against former Fort Collins priest Timothy Evans on Wednesday during the trial's second day.
Evans faces multiple felony counts in Larimer County for sexual assault on a child and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
One of the accusers who took the stand was 16 in 1996 when he said Evans molested him.
 |
| EVANS |
The accuser described a meeting he thought was intended to discuss self-esteem and religious issues with Evans at the priest's office at the Spirit of Christ Parish in Arvada. The prosecution witness described lying on Evan's office floor per the priest's instruction for what he thought was a therapy session.
He said Evans proceeded to caress his body, starting at the boy's chest, moving down to his legs and eventually moving his hands up and under the boy's shorts.
"As he was coming back up my leg, he went under my shorts and actually touched my scrotum," the alleged victim said. "He was where he shouldn't have been."
The trial opened Tuesday with testimony from a 25-year-old man who lived in Fort Collins when Evans allegedly molested him in 1999.
That accuser's mother - still a Fort Collins resident and member of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton - took the stand Wednesday and described her strong ties to the Catholic Church and her feelings upon discovery of the incidents.
"(The people) are the church; the (the priests) are the leaders we look to for guidance," said the mother, whose name is being withheld by the Coloradoan to protect the identity of her son. "There was not a whole lot they could do wrong. When they walked into a room, you stood up."
The mother later described a 2003 lunch meeting with Evans at Schmidt's Bakery in Loveland, during which she said the former priest first gave her a hint that something had happened between him and her son.
"Even if something had happened, (the alleged victim) was over the age of 18," she described Evans as telling her.
"I was sick, physically and in my heart," she said with a cracking voice. "I was let down by someone I held above a lot of other people."
The Catholic Archdiocese of Denver filed three mandated reports over a 13-month period regarding alleged misconduct by Evans against minors, according to testimony Wednesday.
The reports were filed with Arvada, Lakewood and Fort Collins police departments between March 2003 and April 2004, according to testimony by Monsignor Thomas Fryar, the priest in charge of the church's Denver central offices.
A fourth incident, involving a former youth minister at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish - the local Catholic church where Evans was a priest from 1998 to 2002 - was also reported to the Archdiocese in April 2002 but never turned over to authorities because the accuser was not a minor at the time of the incident.
Colorado requires individuals in positions of trust to report alleged incidents of child abuse.
The former priest, who has been removed from his duties by the archdiocese, is also facing charges of sexual misconduct against a minor in Jefferson County. That trial is set to begin April 2.
In testimony Wednesday, another male accuser described an incident in 2000 with Evans.
The witness testified that the priest, who was also serving as his spiritual advisor, asked him to lie on Evan's office floor while the two discussed issues pertaining to an incident of child molestation the alleged victim said he had experienced while growing up at the hands of his brother.
The alleged victim, who was 25 at the time of the reported incident, then described events similar to that of the other accuser in which Evans caressed his legs and torso before moving his hands onto his genitals.
All three of the alleged victims who have testified described incidents in which Evans touched them inappropriately while lying on the floor or a bed. And all three mentioned Evans questioning their "ability to love."
Contact: JPEichmiller@coloradoan.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.