Church volunteer pleads guilty to abusing altar boy

By David Unze
St. Cloud Times
April 03, 2017

http://www.sctimes.com/story/news/local/2017/04/03/church-volunteer-pleads-guilty-abusing-altar-boy/99996416/

Douglas Kleinsmith

A Sartell man who volunteered at a local church pleaded guilty Monday to sexually abusing a teenager who was an altar boy at a St. Cloud church.

Douglas Gerard Kleinsmith, 55, pleaded guilty to two counts of felony criminal sexual conduct on the day when his trial was supposed to begin. Prosecutors will ask a Stearns County judge to sentence Kleinsmith to seven years in prison when he's sentenced June 15.

Kleinsmith volunteered to train altar boys and trained the teenage boy he would abuse, according to a criminal complaint charging him. The complaint says the boy met Kleinsmith at church when he was 15 years old, and that year also began working for Kleinsmith outside church hours.

Kleinsmith was part of a Latin Mass group that met at St. John Cantius Church, according to the Diocese of St. Cloud.

The complaint mentions multiple incidents of Kleinsmith sexually abusing the boy, including once while they were alone at church and three other times away from the church. Kleinsmith pleaded guilty to abusing the boy in Albany and at church.

Kleinsmith previously was convicted in Idaho in 1991 of sexually abusing a child younger than 16.