OREGON
The Oregonian
By Aimee Green | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on April 13, 2015
A Happy Valley pastor scheduled to go to trial this week to fight accusations that he sexually violated a kindergarten-age girl in the mid-1990s suffered a setback last week.
A judge will allow jurors to hear testimony from six other women who claim that pastor Michael Sperou sexually abused them, too, when they were children. But because the statute of limitations has passed for those alleged “prior bad acts,” Sperou can’t be prosecuted for them.
The statute of limitations hasn’t passed for the youngest of Sperou’s alleged victims, the subject of this week’s trial.
Attorneys were selecting a jury Monday. Opening statements are expected to begin Tuesday. Sperou denies the allegations.
Multnomah County Circuit Judge Cheryl Albrecht ruled Friday that jurors also will get to hear from other former members of the Southeast Bible Church. Those members say that the cultlike organization required them to live in a network of homes in Happy Valley and Portland, sometimes with entire families in a single bedroom and children living in closets.
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