NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal
By Michaelangelo Conte | The Jersey Journal
on February 25, 2015
JERSEY CITY — During closing arguments today in the trial of a church deacon accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy, the prosecution said the victim knew his alleged molester as a prophet and exorcist, and believed his mother thought the alleged sexual contact was OK with her.
“There was a lot of testimony about him ‘delivering’ people and exorcisms and removing demons and evil spirits from people,” Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Linda Claude-Oben said today during summations in the trial of Gregorio Martinez, 47, of Jersey City.
“This defendant, this prophet who could take out demons, ask yourself if (the victim) could have done something. Ask yourself if he would be confused and scared and not know what to do,” she added.
Martinez is charged with aggravated criminal sexual contact, child abuse and endangering the welfare of the 13-year-old in a car in a Walmart parking lot in North Bergen on June 10, 2012, officials said. At the time, he was a deacon at Third Bethesda Pentecostal Church in Union City, according to testimony.
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