East Texas

By PAUL J. WEBER
Associated Press Writer

MINEOLA -- Rev. Tim Letsch is opening his new church in the yellow-plastered building where, prosecutors will tell a jury this week, children as young as 5 were forced into performing sex shows.

Some would rather just forget about the shuttered place.

"This really shook this town," longtime resident Shirley Chadwick said. "This was horrible."

Jury selection was set to begin Monday in the year's third Mineola swinger party case to go to trial, in which Smith County prosecutors will again lay out allegations that elementary school-age children had sex for crowds in the windowless front rooms of a former daycare.

Patrick Kelly, 41, is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, tampering with physical evidence and engaging in organized criminal activity. Thad Davidson, Kelly's attorney, said his client passed a polygraph test proving his innocence and worries about getting a fair trial in Tyler.

Davidson wants the trial moved well beyond close-knit Mineola, a conservative bean-processing town of about 5,100 where there are more than 30 churches and the closest place to buy alcohol is 21 miles away.

"I think it's impossible to get a fair trial within 80 miles of Smith County," Davidson said.

In all, six adults have been charged in connection with the case, one of them a parent of the three siblings.

Jurors deliberated less than five minutes before returning guilty verdicts in the trials of the first two defendants, who were accused of grooming the kids for sex shows in "kindergarten" classes and passing off Vicodin as "silly pills" to help the children perform.

"Once the kids were in (state) custody, everybody knew from day one there was something wrong with them," Smith County Assistant District Attorney Joe Murphy said. "All the technical flags of child abuse were coming out."

Both Jamie Pittman and Shauntel Mayo were sentenced to life in prison. Kelly also faces a life sentence, and Smith County prosecutors are hoping for another swift verdict after the trial begins in Tyler.

Mineola is also rooting to get the scandal behind it as quickly as possible.

The one-story building where prosecutors say four children - the three siblings, now ages 12, 10 and 7, and their 10-year-old aunt - were trained to perform in front of an audience of 50 to 100 once a week has been vacant since the landlord ousted the alleged organizers in 2004.

Down a slight hill is a retirement home and even closer, about 100 yards away, is office of the local newspaper. Doris Newman, editor of The Mineola Monitor, said rumors of swinger parties spread around town but that no one mentioned children being involved.

Newman, who can see the front of the building from her office window, said she remembers the parking lot outside filling up with more than a dozen cars at night.

In August 2004, an editorial under the headline "Sex In the City" opined that if the swingers left quietly, "we'll try and forget they've infiltrated our town with their set of moral standards."

"It's not that we're trying to look the other way," Newman said. "But there's a lot more to Mineola than that."

According to a Mineola police report, the department first investigated a complaint in June 2005 in which the siblings' foster mother said one of the girls described dancing toward men and another child saying that "everybody does nasty stuff in there."

In the second trial, Child Protective Services caseworker Kristi Hachtel testified, "I've seen a lot and I never in my wildest dreams imagined this. They were preyed upon in probably one of the most heinous ways possible."

CPS said the children are now doing better.

"Through counseling and therapy sessions these children are now finally feeling secure and safe," CPS spokeswoman Shari Pulliam wrote in an e-mail.

Permanent custody of the three siblings were given to John and Margie Cantrell. Last week, prosecutors in California charged John Cantrell with sexually assaulting a child in the state 18 years ago. Margie Cantrell said her husband is innocent.

Davidson, Kelly's attorney, filed a motion Friday asking to postpone the trial in light of the allegations against Cantrell, a state witness. Texas Child Protective Services said it would be "common" for the agency to investigate.

Outside the boarded-up building where the children allegedly performed, Letsch, the pastor, said he knows that building a congregation might be difficult because of the stigma attached to the property.

"You got to decide whether you're willing to forgive those kind of things," Letsch said. "It's a hard deal. Especially for a spiritual person to walk in and say, 'This happened here.'"