Posted on 08/23/2002 5:41:56 AM PDT by SMEDLEYBUTLER
Ex-pastor pleads guilty to molesting boy, attempt on brother
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 13, 2002
The former senior pastor of a Solana Beach Lutheran church pleaded guilty to molesting an 11-year-old boy and trying to do the same to his younger brother. He now faces 20 to 30 years in prison.
Michael Skoor, 55, of Encinitas told San Diego Superior Court Judge Kenneth K. So yesterday he was uneasy about entering the guilty plea, but said he wanted to.
"I'm terrified," the former Calvary Lutheran Church pastor told So.
Skoor's guilty plea spares him a life sentence.
"He's terrified of going to prison for 20 years," defense lawyer Bill Nimmo said.
The plea also spares the brothers, now 13 and 10, from taking the stand against him, Nimmo said. "Skoor didn't want me to have to cross-examine the kids."
Skoor doesn't dispute he molested one of the brothers after the boy was sent to him for help dealing with his parents' divorce.
He pleaded guilty to molesting the boy 20 times from October 2000 to April 2001 in his home, in a church office, in his car, in the boy's home and during a camping trip.
Prosecutors also accused him of molesting the boy's younger brother, but Skoor pleaded guilty only to attempted molestation as part of the plea agreement.
The boys' mother cried as the judge accepted Skoor's guilty plea.
The mother didn't talk to reporters outside the courtroom, but said to prosecutors later she had had mixed emotions the resolution of the case, Deputy District Attorney Jill Schall said.
"It's bittersweet," the prosecutor said. "While it's over and her children now have closure, the fact of the matter is her kids are still molest victims."
Schall described the boys crying in her office when talking about the incidents with Skoor.
"Her children will no longer have to be traumatized by being exposed to this pedophile who was posing as a pastor," she said.
Church officials agreed to pay the boys $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit claiming they should have protected the boys from the abuse from Skoor, who has been with the Solana Beach church since 1989. A judge finalized that agreement two weeks ago.
In a civil suit against the Encinitas Union School District, lawyers say Skoor molested one of the boys in a school office. Settlement negotiations are under way in that case, lawyers said.
Under the plea agreement reached yesterday, Judge So is to sentence Skoor to at least 20 and no more than 30 years in prison at a hearing scheduled Oct. 1. Skoor will have to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence before he would be eligible for parole, so he will have to serve at least 17 years.
If convicted of all the charges he was facing, he could have been sentenced to up to 155 years to life in prison, Schall said.
The plea agreement also keeps Skoor from being named a sexually violent predator, which would have allowed prison officials to keep him incarcerated after completion of his sentence.
Nimmo said Skoor's life changed on Ash Wednesday last year.
"He realized just how wrong he'd been," Nimmo said.
Skoor contemplated throwing himself in front of a moving train, but instead went to a psychiatrist and confessed. The psychiatrist told authorities, as required by law.
Skoor left town while sheriff's deputies looked for him and entered a treatment program in Atlanta before turning himself in last October.
"He has tremendous remorse," Nimmo said.
Schall found justice in the plea agreement.
"I'm hoping he dies in prison," she said. "That's the best way to assure that children are protected."
The boys' mother said in June that she wished the case would end as soon as possible.
"The molestations and everything surrounding them have put a tremendous stress on my whole family," she wrote in a letter to a judge hearing the civil case. "My family desperately needs closure."
Onell Soto: (760) 476-8211; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
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