MICHIGAN
Record-Eagle
BY MATT TROUTMAN
mtroutman@record-eagle.com
TRAVERSE CITY — An Honor man’s admission to a pastor about a sexual assault on a young boy at church can be used as evidence in a criminal trial, state appellate judges ruled.
Steven William Richard, 29, faces accusations he molested a boy, then 6, in the bathroom of Immanuel Baptist Church in Grand Traverse County’s Garfield Township during a January 2013 church service. He’d been scheduled to stand trial last year in 13th Circuit Court on a sex crime charge, but an appeal put that on hold.
Michigan Court of Appeals judges this week ruled Richard’s statements to a church pastor after the incident don’t fall under the state’s clergy-penitent privilege. Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Bob Cooney said that puts the case back into 13th Circuit Court Judge Philip Rodgers’ courtroom for trial.
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