Source: Winnipeg Sun and conoe.ca
A minister and former Christian college instructor has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a young man who sought counselling after he feared he was homosexual.

A jury returned with the guilty verdict early last night after only a few hours of deliberations.

Terrance Lewis, 60, will be sentenced at a later date.

Earlier in the day, defence lawyer Ron Simenik argued the victim knew full well the intimate sessions he shared with Lewis had nothing to do with “therapy.”

“They did it mutually by consent,” Simenik said. “We may not agree with it or understand it, but at the end of the day, that’s not the issue.”

Crown attorney Dale Schille said the evidence against Lewis was “overwhelming” and he never denied the allegations in a statement to police.

In earlier testimony, the alleged victim, now 29, told court he started meeting Lewis for counselling sessions in early 2000 after his parents caught him viewing gay pornography on the family computer.

"I was raised in a religious home and taught that if you were gay you went to hell, so that wasn't an option," he testified.

Lewis -- a family friend and counsellor at Providence Bible College -- confided he had his own sexual identity issues and the two embarked on weekly counselling sessions designed to “assist me to be straight and to live a straight life,” the man said.

The man said Lewis started a program of “touch therapy,” which included the two kissing and fondling each other and engaging in sexual role playing.

"The scenario was that he would be my wife on our honeymoon night. He would say 'When you are kissing me, you are not kissing me, you are kissing your girlfriend,' trying to make me comfortable kissing a girlfriend," he said.

During "touch therapy" sessions in Lewis' car, Lewis asked him to masturbate, the man said. Lewis also admitted to fantasizing about him, the man said.

The man said he had no previous sexual experience and believed the "therapy" sessions would "keep me straight." The nearly weekly sessions took place over the course of two years while the man was a student at Providence.

“He said I was to tell no one about it because no one would understand,” the man testified.

In his opening statement, defense lawyer Simenik challenged the man's portrayal of himself as a naive innocent, pointing to a homosexual encounter the man had in a YMCA locker room before he started meeting Lewis.

Simenik said yesterday the men didn’t become sexually intimate until a year after they started seeing each other.

“It started as a friendship, evolved, they became closer ... two consenting adults involved in mutual intimacy,” Simenik said.

Full article: winnipegsun.com - Winnipeg News - Man found guilty in gay "therapy" case
Bible teacher accused in sex assault | Canoe.ca