Oregon Court of Appeals Upholds Pastor's Child Sex Abuse Conviction

The Oregonian
October 2, 2017

http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2017/10/oregon_court_of_appeals_affirm.html

Mike Sperou (left) talks with attorney Steven Sherlag in this 2015 file photo.(Randy L. Rasmussen/File)

The Oregon Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a pastor sentenced to prison for sexually abusing a girl who grew up in his Happy Valley church.

Mike Sperou

The court affirmed the conviction of Mike Sperou without opinion on Wednesday, records show. A Multnomah County jury convicted Sperou in 2015 on three counts of first-degree sexual penetration of a person under the age of 12, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

He's being held in the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, and records list his earliest release date as December 27, 2032.

In 1997, seven girls complained that Sperou, co-founder of the North Clackamas Bible Community, had molested them. No charges were brought because the girls' stories were inconsistent or vague. The allegations came on the heels of a split in the church, leading to the exit of several families.

In 2013, the girls -- by then adult women -- again brought their complaints to police. After an investigation, authorities found that the statute of limitations had expired on all of the complaints except those raised by one woman, who then offered additional details not previously considered.

The other six women were allowed to tell the jury about their own experiences with Sperou, who's now 67, during the trial.

Defense attorney Steven L. Sherlag previously said he intended to appeal Sperou's conviction to the Oregon Court of Appeals. He said the judge's ruling constituted "reversible error" when she allowed six additional women not listed as victims in the case to offer graphic testimony of their experiences with Sperou when they were girls.