A young woman testified in court Tuesday that she had sex with a minister in his Denver home when she was 17.
The Rev. Michael Peters, 37, faces two sex-assault charges stemming from the allegations of the woman, who is now 20.
Peters, a Baptist minister who was the girl’s choir instructor, counseled the alleged victim for teen issues and for an earlier sexual assault against her, she said.
The woman, whose identity is being withheld by The Denver Post because she’s an alleged sex-assault victim, told the jury that flirting with Peters gave way to kissing and fondling and eventually sex in his home more than once.
The alleged criminal sexual contact began in 2003, according to court testimony. The woman told a Denver police investigator of the alleged sexual encounters with Peters in January 2006.
“I was special to him; he loved me,” the woman told jurors. “It kind of made me feel different from the rest of my friends.”
The woman said she babysat Peters’ children and that some of the alleged encounters happened when she slept over at his house after babysitting.
After the woman went to college out of state, she said, her relationship with Peters continued and included phone sex and cybersex.
A transcript of an explicit instant message, allegedly between the two, was read in court, and prosecutors entered letters and a phone bill as part of the evidence in the case.
Defense attorney Lisa Wayne noted that some of the documents were not dated and others didn’t include the defendant’s name.
The woman told the court she printed out some of the materials off of a computer and saved them in a box in her bedroom closet at her parents’ home.
The alleged victim testified that her mother found a letter she wrote to Peters in the box while she was away at college. Wayne then asked the woman if her mother ever called her to confront her about any of the explicit materials in the box.
“No,” the alleged victim replied.
The woman told the court she kept the alleged encounters a secret for more than two years because of her mutual agreement with Peters.
“It was exciting, kind of cool,” she said.
The jury trial is scheduled to continue today.
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
