By ERIN MATHEWS Salina Journal
A Salina pastor accused of sexually abusing a child is not a danger to the community or a flight risk and his bond should be reduced, his attorney argued Monday.
But prosecutor Christina Trocheck, an assistant county attorney, asked Saline County District Court Judge Jerome Hellmer to postpone his decision about lowering the bond until he has heard from the alleged victim at Birger Draget's preliminary hearing.
Hellmer agreed that he will leave the bond set at $500,000 until 9 a.m. Nov. 15, when the preliminary hearing is scheduled. If for some reason the preliminary is rescheduled, Hellmer said he will still consider Draget's bond at that time.
Wichita attorney Roger Falk, who represents Draget, said Draget served as pastor of Seventh Day Adventist Church congregations in Salina, Junction City, Enterprise and Manhattan until he was placed on administrative leave after his Oct. 6 arrest.
Draget, 54, is accused of 21 counts including rape, aggravated criminal sodomy and aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Several of those counts would carry a life prison sentence if he is convicted.
Authorities allege that Draget committed offenses between October 2006 and September. Salina police launched an investigation after a teenage girl reported that she had suffered years of sexual abuse.
A citizen of Norway
Draget, who is a citizen of Norway, has made Salina his home and would be willing to surrender his passport if the court was concerned he might leave the country, Falk said.
He urged Hellmer to consider the strength of the evidence against Draget when considering the amount of his bond. He said an Arkansas police report is three paragraphs long, and a Salina Police Department affidavit is a page long, and those are the documents upon which the case is based.
"This whole case boils down to a he-said, she-said sort of situation," Falk said. "The evidence in support of those 21 counts appears to be relatively weak based on what the state has produced."
However, Trocheck said it is not uncommon for there to be no other witnesses in cases where child sexual abuse is alleged.
"Child sexual abuse is a very secretive crime," she said. "The victim has no motivation to make these allegations."
She had a head injury
Falk said the alleged victim's sister, who shared a bedroom with her, wrote a letter of support for Draget saying nothing like the things alleged in the 21 counts against him took place.
He said last winter the young woman was thrown from a horse and suffered a head injury that may be contributing toward producing confused, false memories. He said she had been cared for recently by a person who often speaks of her own experiences of being sexually abused as a child, and girl's damaged brain could have adopted those memories as her own.
"We don't know if her experience being around this person contributed to that," he said.
Trocheck asked the judge to hear from the young woman before making a decision about bond.
"If these allegations are true, your honor, it means a child has been sexually abused for years," she said.
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