Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 18, 1993 TAG: 9302180081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAY TAYLOR CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
PROSECUTOR SEEKS TO CLOSE TRIAL OF PASTOR IN SEX CASE A9 A1 CLOSE CLOSE
To the amazement of legal experts, Clifton Forge prosecutor Jeff Crackel will try to close the doors on the trial of the Rev. William C. Mattox Jr., a highly respected Baptist minister accused of sexually abusing six girls as long as 22 years ago.Although the women are adults now, Crackel believes they should remain anonymous because they were juveniles at the time. Juvenile proceedings are closed in Virginia.
The case has horrified residents of Clifton Forge, a town of fewer than 5,000 that witnessed not only an indictment against Mattox this month but unrelated drug charges against a prominent pharmacist and gun charges against a pawn-shop owner.
"It is a very disheartening thing," said Mayor Johnny Wright, who was "completely shocked" at the indictment of Mattox. "He's been very cordial and it seems a very nice person."
Mattox has been pastor of the 800-member Clifton Forge Baptist Church for about 25 years.
Mattox also has worked for years on the rescue squad and has served as treasurer for the Kiwanis Club. He grew up in Roanoke, attended public school there and attended Roanoke College and a Baptist seminary in Waco, Texas, according to Marvin Swaim, a former chairman of the board of deacons at Mattox's church.
The indictment, handed up Feb. 1 by a Clifton Forge Circuit Court grand jury, charges that from 1971 to 1980 Mattox abused six girls who were 7 to 10 years old. He faces eight charges of aggravated sexual battery, a felony punishable by one to 20 years in prison.
The indictment followed an investigation by Virginia State Police.
The charges give no details. J.T. Oliver, assistant special agent in charge for the state police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, would divulge little about the probe.
"It's been a few months back that it came to light to us," Oliver said. Evidence was gathered over "a period of around several months." All the women in the case came forward separately with their accusations, he said.
"This is one of six or seven criminal cases that are being brought around the state after the passage of many years," said Sylvia Clute, a Richmond lawyer who specializes in lawsuits involving sexual assault.
In mid-December, as it became evident that the state police were investigating him, Mattox handed a letter to Swaim, who was chairman of the church deacons during 1992.
In the letter, which Swaim read to the congregation one Sunday in December, Mattox said he had been voluntarily seeing a psychiatrist, and asked for a leave of absence. "He did not say specifically when he started taking the treatments. He just said he had been under treatment," Swaim said.
"At the time, he was very composed. He just left when I got up to read the letter to the congregation." Reached at home Tuesday, Mattox said that "under no circumstances" would he discuss the case.
Mattox's lawyer, Hal St. Clair, who lives in Clifton Forge and has an office in Covington, will try to have the case thrown out at a pretrial hearing today. "The charges in some cases are 23 years old," St. Clair said. "We feel like the Rev. Mattox has a constitutional right to a speedy trial. . . . It's very difficult to defend anyone against something that happened 23 years ago."
St. Clair should have no trouble finding character witnesses for Mattox.
Not untypical of the town's reaction is that from Robert Drewry, a City Council member: "Whatever the needs are, he is always the first guy that comes around and offers support. . . . Many people outside of his congregation will go outside of their pastor and go to him when they have a family crisis."
If St. Clair is not able to have the case dismissed, he will challenge the prosecutor's attempts to close it, he said.
Crackel, the prosecutor, said the privacy rights of the women must be protected to avoid the risk of discouraging them from testifying. Also, by leaving the women anonymous in the indictments, Crackel has room to negotiate a plea bargain with Mattox's lawyer without having to name the women publicly.
The women, he said, all had experienced sudden memories of the incidents.
Such cases are inherently difficult for juries because they often rely on the word of one person against another. Therefore, the credibility of the witnesses may be paramount.
In trying to close the Mattox case to the public, Crackel said he will rely on a ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court. But he said he could not remember the name of the case and did not return phone calls from a reporter inquiring about it later.
Swaim, the former church deacon, said he is outraged that the women have not been named. Swaim, who is perhaps Mattox's staunchest defender, says, "I don't think there is a human being in the world I love any more [than Mattox].
"I am disgusted as hell, to tell you the truth, and I can't understand how a grown woman can be called Jane Doe and accuse a grown man of something," he said. "How can a judge permit somebody to remain anonymous and really crucify a person?"
Several legal experts were skeptical, too.
"I can't imagine them allowing him to close the entire trial," said Ronald J. Bacigal, a law professor at the University of Richmond. "While they are juveniles, they can be protected."
The state's high court ruled several years ago that "even if the parties all agree to close the trial, then the press has an independent right to have a public trial," Bacigal said.
"Not only are we not talking about the defendant not being a juvenile, we are talking about the victims not being juveniles," said Earl C. Dudley Jr., a University of Virginia law professor. "I can't believe it is constitutionally appropriate to close it. There is a very strong presumption in favor of an open trial."
Confidentiality is what some in the church want.
"It is a very private matter between him and the people involved," said Richard Van Lear, the current chairman of the board of deacons. "We need to have Christian concern for all parties involved, . . . and this Christian concern is to allow them their privacy."
Swaim said the accusations were not new. Several years ago, sexual complaints about Mattox were taken to the deacons, he said, but he gave no details.
"I never heard anybody who ever had one bad word to say about him until he started to be accused of these things two or three years ago," Swaim said. "He had been accused of some wrongdoing by a couple of members of the church, but the board made it very plain they are 100 percent behind him. Well, almost 100 percent.
". . . For some reason or another, the deacons chose to . . . not really discuss it."
Van Lear, asked if complaints about Mattox ever had been brought to the deacons before, said: "I wouldn't want to respond to that. Obviously, someone has been bending your ear."