COLORADO
Gazette
Published: June 25, 2013, 12:46 pm, by Lance Benzel
A Colorado Springs teenager who says he was paid to have sex with a priest he called “grandfather” in 2011 told a friend he agreed to the deal partly out of pity for the elderly clergyman.
“I kind of feel sorry for him,” the then-15-year-old altar boy said of the Rev. Charles Robert “Bob” Manning, 78, according to a phone conversation that was secretly taped by a friend in 2011 and turned over to Colorado Springs police.
“He’s on the verge of dying. He’s real close,” the boy says later. “That’s why I don’t want him to get in trouble.”
In a 20-minute recording played for jurors on Tuesday, the boy sounds reluctant to discuss the allegations but opens up after assurances by Evan Hess, a fellow teen who is friends with the accuser’s sister.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.