Man is latest to be tried in connection with sex show ring in Mineola.

MINEOLA — The Rev. Tim Letsch is opening a church in the yellow-plastered building where prosecutors say 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 is scheduled to begin today in nearby Tyler in the year's third Mineola swinger party case to go to trial. 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 day care.

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.

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 three of the children.

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

Prosecutors say four children — the three siblings, now 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.

"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."

Jamie Pittman and Shauntel Mayo were sentenced to life in prison. Kelly also could face a life sentence, and Smith County prosecutors are hoping for another swift verdict.

Mineola, about 80 miles east of Dallas and 26 miles northwest of Tyler, is also rooting to get the scandal behind it as quickly as possible.

The building has been vacant since the landlord ousted the defendants in 2004.

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 said 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 ... imagined this. They were preyed upon in probably one of the most heinous ways possible."

CPS said the children are 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. This 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 witness for the state. Texas CPS said it would be common for the agency to investigate such a thing.

Letsch, the pastor, said he knows that building a congregation there 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.' "

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/06/23/0623sexclub.html

Emphasis added by H4K Editor