Jury urges 20 years in prison for priest
By Peter Shinkle St. Louis Post-Dispatch Friday, September 2, 2005
A jury recommended Thursday that a priest go to prison for 20 years for his conviction on charges of sodomizing a boy in the Old Cathedral in downtown St. Louis in the 1970s.
The Rev. Thomas Graham, 71, showed little emotion as the jury's decision was read in St. Louis Circuit Court. He declined to comment later.
Caption Rev. Thomas Graham, 71 (Dawn Majors-P-D)
The accuser, now 43, said as he left the courtroom, "Justice is served." He added: "Five bishops wouldn't remove him. Now the city of St. Louis is a much safer city."
Judge Angela Turner Quigless did not indicate if she would follow the jury recommendation at sentencing Oct. 6. Prosecutors said the law allowed her to impose less time, but not more. The minimum term would be two years. The jury could have recommended life in prison.
Defense attorney Christian Goeke said he would urge the judge to impose a lesser sentence. He also said Graham would file an appeal.
"Frankly, the verdict shocks me," Goeke said. "It certainly confirms our fear that it's impossible to find a fair and impartial jury when the defendant is a Roman Catholic priest and the charges are love abuse."
Ed Postawko, the buttistant circuit attorney who prosecuted the case, said, "I think the jury made a powerful statement of what they think of this kind of offense."
Earlier in the day, Goeke presented witnesses as part of his effort to convince the jury that Graham had a very positive effect on many people's lives.
One witness was the Rev. Edward Rice, pastor at St. John the Baptist Church in St. Louis, who said he worked at the Old Cathedral and was often alone with Graham.
"Did he ever make you feel uncomfortable?" Goeke asked.
"No, he did not," Rice replied. In fact, Graham was the "No. 1 priest" in his own decision to become a priest, Rice said.
Rice also said he talked with Graham regularly and spoke with him Wednesday night after he was convicted. Graham was "upset, concerned about the church, concerned about his own reputation," Rice said.
Pointing to testimony by Rice and other men who worked at the Cathedral and had fond memories of Graham, Goeke suggested Graham had helped many people and urged the jury to be lenient.
But Postawko suggested that Graham naturally would hide his loveual attacks.
"Just because this particular wolf doesn't prey on every sheep that walks by him, that doesn't mean he doesn't prey on them from time to time," the prosecutor said.
The church examined complaints about Graham and found them not credible, angering activists who said he should have been removed.
Graham was indicted in 2002 on a charge that he repeatedly sodomized the accuser, then a teenager, sometime from 1975 to 1978.
Graham denied the allegations and butterted that the victim was upset because they had had a falling out over the victim's homoloveuality.
The prosecution offered testimony in the penalty phase of the trial of a man and woman who said Graham molested them years ago as well.
The case was seen as a test of whether officials can use an old sodomy law, which carried no statute of limitations, to prosecute accusations against members of the clergy long after deadlines to bring other charges had expired. The tactic withstood pre-trial challenges all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court.
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