Somewhere along the way he met William Kutscher. Together they went to Cleveland. There Stiles established the Miracle Revival Center in an abandoned movie theatre in the city's teeming east-side Negro ghetto. Friend Kutscher was assistant pastor. Miracles were performed twice a week on regular schedule. The congregation quickly grew to a thousand and more. The boys had it made.

Then last October Stiles fired Kutscher as assistant pastor and found a new friend. Kutscher went to the police. He accused Stiles of "fake miracles," and even more interestingly, of immoral acts with young teen-age boys. The sex charges were investigated no one cared much about the fake miracles-and Stiles was indicted on 19 counts of sodomy.

The counts involved six teen-age boys and William Kutscher. The boys were all sons of members of the congregation. The acts were alleged to have taken place in the family homes where Stiles sometimes stayed overnight.

The six boys who admitted the acts were clamped into Juvenile Detention Home and held for two months as material witnesses. They were generously allowed to go home for Christ-

mas.

At the trial, which took place in early January, hundreds of loyal members of Stiles' congregation thronged the courtroom. Among his supporters were the parents of some of the "victims".

One by one the boys came to the stand and denied the acts they had previously admitted. Reluctantly, Common Pleas Judge Joseph Silbert, had to dismiss 17 of the 19 counts for lack of evidence. That left two counts, both involving accuser Kutscher himself. And guess who testified as to those two acts!

The jury of nine women and three men took an hour and a half to find

Stiles quilty. Snapped Judge Silbert: "It would have taken me two seconds."

"There is no doubt in my mind that he molested those children," the Judge told the jury, forgetting that no inference of guilt could be drawn concerning the counts which had not been tried.

The sentence of one to twenty years on each count was mandatory under Ohio's indeterminate sentence law. But the judge has discretion to decide whether the two terms shall run concurrently or or consecutively. There wasn't much doubt which way Judge Silbert would decide. So Stiles goes to the penitentiary for from two to forty years. And it will be a long time before anybody dares to parole him.

Meanwhile, back in the Juvenile Detention Home, the boys, now being held on juvenile delinquency charges for perjury, told how Stiles had offered a thousand dollars to five of them and a new car to the sixth if they would deny the immoral acts. Thereupon, Stiles was brought back to court to face charges of witness tampering.

The Stiles case is undoubtedly an unsavory one. But it provides some instructive lessons. Stiles was not convicted of any acts with children. Legally his only crimes were two acts with friend Kutscher who is 24 years old.

Here then is an example of how sex laws, whether homosexual or heterosexual, can be manipulated for private purposes. Kutscher was a lover scorned. He wanted to hit back, to hurt the friend who had cast him aside. Certainly, he achieved the revenge he sought. Stiles may well spend most of his life in prison. And Kutscher, who participated in exactly the same "crimes," becomes almost a public benefactor. Perhaps no tears should be wasted on Stiles, but a few might be shed for you or me or anyone who might fall victim to the manipulative misuse of sex laws.

R. H.