A priest at several Roman Catholic churches in northwest Ohio said in federal court Wednesday the sexual acts he performed with several former students of a Toledo parochial school all occurred after they turned 18 and were all consensual.
The Rev. Michael Zacharias, 56, admitted to performing oral sex on the three that he first met as boys when he was a seminarian working at St. Catherine of Siena School during the 1999-2000 school year. But he testified in his own defense that none of it occurred when they were still minors, nor were any of the sex acts that occurred while they were adults based on force, fraud, or coercion, as alleged in criminal charges against him.
And Father Zacharias maintained that a “confession video” his first-known alleged victim recorded at his direction, either in 2015 or 2016 and in which he admitted to having lusted after and groomed that person from the day he first saw him as a schoolboy, was all part of an elaborate dominance fantasy.
Testimony from the priest, whom the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toledo suspended administratively following his FBI arrest outside a Findlay church on Aug. 18, 2020, concluded the witnesses for the trial that began last week. Lawyers are scheduled to give closing arguments Thursday, after which the case will go to the U.S. District Court jury.
Father Zacharias is charged with a single count of sex trafficking of a minor, two counts of sex trafficking of a minor by force, fraud, or coercion, and two counts of sex trafficking of an adult by force, fraud, or coercion. Five other counts of the latter charge for which he was initially indicted were dropped.
The alleged victims have been officially identified in court by their first names only, although in some cases their last names have been spoken in court or appeared on evidentiary exhibits shown there. Because of the charges’ sexual nature, their entire names are being withheld from publication.
The prosecution’s case was laid out over five previous days of witness testimony including that of the three alleged victims. It theorized that Father Zacharias sought them out because they fulfilled his preference for post-pubescent boys, and they were vulnerable. That is because they needed money to sustain drug addictions, money he offered them in exchange for the opportunity to perform oral sex on them, according to the prosecution’s case.
Father Zacharias asserted from the witness stand, however, that while he had observed his first-known alleged victim, as an adult, crush a painkiller pill before snorting its powder at the rectory at St. Mary’s Parish in Van Wert, Ohio and was aware of occasional drug use by the others, he did not know of opiate addictions until much later.
He said he gave money to the tune of thousands of dollars to two of the alleged victims because of his charitable nature toward people he considered “more than friends,” while the other oral-sex recipient got only token amounts because that relationship was much more “shallow.”
“The money would have stopped if I had known it was being used for hard drugs,” and the relationships themselves might also have succumbed, the priest testified.
He said that during his “pastoral year” at the St. Catherine of Siena parish in West Toledo that he spent a lot of time on the parish school’s junior-high floor. But he said that occurred because he thought his religious insights would be more valuable to upper-grade students and because he had romantic feelings for one of the sixth-grade teachers: Andrea Puhl, then known as Andrea Faust, who testified as a prosecution witness last week.
“We felt unspoken sparks toward each other. We mostly talked about our faith,” Father Zacharias said.
He confirmed Ms. Puhl’s statement that she sent him a love letter several years later, and said he telephoned her in response that he was sticking with the priesthood and adhering to his vow of celibacy.
While conceding that he did eventually break that vow, the priest said that did not occur with the first-known victim until 2009, when he was 43, and that person was 21.
And while that alleged victim had testified that Father Zacharias performed oral sex on him in the rectory at St. Peter’s Parish in Mansfield, Ohio when he was still 17, the priest said the living room chair in which that allegedly occurred was not there at the time. And the only time that person visited St. Peter’s, his mother — who testified on the trial’s first day — accompanied him, Father Zacharias said.
The first-known victim began two years of incarceration following a drug-related arrest in mid-2010. Father Zacharias admitted to having telephone conversations with the younger of that man’s two younger brothers starting the following year.
But he denied having any sexual contact himself with the youngest brother until after he turned 18.
The third-known alleged victim, who is two years older than the first, was a friend of that older brother, and Father Zacharias said he did “not recall who reached out to who” in the summer or fall of 2010.
Father Zacharias said he eventually gave oral sex to that person about 15 to 20 times starting after he was transferred to St. Joseph’s Parish in Fremont in 2011. But Father Zacharias denied that alleged victim’s testimony about three sexual incidents while he was in the eighth grade at St. Catherine’s. Real-life sexual encounters with him, instead of just sexting, began at the other man’s insistence, he said.
“You know you want it. Give me some money,” he described that alleged victim telling him.
Father Zacharias acknowledged denying during initial FBI questioning that he had ever sex, which he explained dually as an attempt to protect himself and the first-known alleged victim and as based on a belief that not having penetrated anyone meant he was still a virgin.
“Is that too Bill Clinton-ish? I don’t know,” he said on the stand in reference to then-President Clinton’s high-profile denial of sexual relations with intern Monica Lewinsky.
Under cross-examination by Tracey Tangeman, an assistant U.S. attorney, Father Zacharias admitted that sexually charged discussions he had conducted with various people were inappropriate for him as a priest and that he had violated his celibacy vow. But Father Zacharias said it had not been improper for him to have described an image of St. Teresa of Avila to an eighth grader as appearing to be a suggestive pose.
First Published May 10, 2023, 11:07 p.m.
