Boy Scout sexual abuse case goes to trial

Sep. 22—Content warning: This article discusses allegations of child sexual abuse. Readers' discretion is advised.

CATLETTSBURG After six years of starts and delays, a Boyd County jury will get to decide whether or not a former Boy Scout leader is a cunning child predator or a wrongfully accused do-gooder.

Paul Steven Crace, 56, is facing trial in Boyd County Circuit Court on one count of using of an electronic device to procure sex from a minor and five counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor. Crace was initially charged on procurement in June 2015, but the case has languished on the docket due to a series of unforeseen events.

Wheels of justice turn slowly

Crace was charged after the mother of the 13-year-old victim allegedly found messages on her son's cell phone offering money in exchange for oral sex and masturbation. Under Commonwealth Attorney David Justice, Crace was indicted on a solicitation charge.

In May 2017, Crace was indicted on a child pornography charge after the Boyd County Sheriff's Office turned up some images on a computer. That charge was tried separately in September 2019 — a jury acquitted him, after defense attorney Sebastian Joy successfully argued the computer in question was owned by an area business and Crace had no knowledge of the images on them.

When Justice died in August 2017 and the current Commonwealth Attorney, Rhonda Copley, was appointed, the office had to be recused from the case because Copley had dealt with the victim's family in a family court matter.

So the case got kicked to Joe Merkle, of the Greenup County Commonwealth Attorney's Office. Acting as special prosecutor, Merkle was heading toward a trial in October 2018, when the victim dropped a bombshell disclosure.

Not only had Crace sexually solicited the boy, he actually molested him multiple times, according to the testimony.

That's when a grand jury tacked five more counts onto Crace's indictment.

After starts and fits — and COVID 2020 putting the skids on all trials in Kentucky — a jury of nine women and four men (two are alternates, to be released via lottery once deliberations are to begin) will finally decide the former scout leader's fate.

Abuser or charitable?

The victim in this case — who The Daily Independent will identify as XY — is described from the testimony as a shy kid who came from a large, working poor family. In 2013, the Kentucky Cabinet of Child and Family Services removed XY from his mother's home and placed him in the care of his father and stepfather.

While crammed in a trailer outside of Ashland with five to six siblings and step-siblings, XY was enrolled in a local Boy Scout Troop his brothers attended.

Crace, at the time, was a parent volunteer. His son, due to some medical issues, could not participate in team sports. In order to bond closer with is son, Crace participated starting in the cub scouts and into the Boy Scouts. As Crace testified from the stand, he was volunteered for positions because he had extensive experience being a Boy Scout when he was child.

Transportation was an issue for XY and his siblings, so Crace and two other volunteers would pick up the children and take them to the once-a-week meeting.

XY and his family moved around after his father lost a local government job — at one point, they stayed at the Country Hearth in South Point for a six-month period. Eventually, the boy landed in West Virginia for a time.

Crace said he would occasionally help out with the family's groceries, even paying rent on two rooms at the motel when they came up short. XY said he thought all the help made Crace a "good guy." But the facade was quickly dashed when the abuse started, XY said.

According to XY and his father, Crace started picking up a few of the boys to take shopping or out to eat. Then he started taking them to his home, when his wife and child were away. The alleged abuse started at some point in the summer — due to the timelines of the case, Joy pinned down the alleged abuse as occurring over the summer of 2014, while Merkle has left it a bit open-ended.

XY said the abuse would follow the same pattern — Crace would pick him up, take him to McDonald's, drive him to his house and put on "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" on Netflix. While watching the movie, Crace would touch the boy's private parts, according to the testimony.

Joy tried to combat that assertion on cross-examination, stating "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" was not released on Netflix until 2018. That led to a heated sidebar, with Merkle wildly gesturing and Judge George Davis sending the jury out of the courtroom to hash it out.

The first time the abuse happened, Crace slid the boy a few dollars, the victim testified. XY's father said every time XY or his brothers went with Crace, the boys would come back with between $40-60. If one brother (we'll call ZA), in particular went with Crace, he'd come back with "hundreds of dollars," the father said.

"Looking at it now, I think he was paying us hush money," the father said.

Crace denied ever having any boy alone in his house, nor taking any of them inside his home. While Crace, who was making between $85,000 and $100,000 a year as a computer database administrator at Southern Ohio Medical Center, could work from home by that stage of his career, he testified that "nine times out of 10 I went in to work."

His wife worked at a hospital in Huntington and typically wouldn't be home until 3 p.m. on workdays — his son, then a teenager, would hang out in the house during the summer, Crace said.

Come home to roost?

XY told the jury he was molested about 12-13 times by Crace, but specifically laid out five instances. During his testimony, he drew out a layout of Crace's living room, an exercise done by the defendant and the defendant's ex-wife as well.

When asked why he kept going back to Crace's home, XY said he did it because he wanted to protect his brothers.

"I thought if I kept coming back, he'd leave them alone," he said.

On May 30, 2015, text messages screen-shotted by XY's mother show Crace attempting to haggle a price with the victim for a sexual favor. Unlike the abuse detailed by XY, Crace asked the boy to perform acts on him, according to the evidence.

XY said Crace had solicited him multiple times, offering money. He said he initially engaged in it because he needed the money to feed his family. He also figured it would never happen, so he went along with the conversation in order for it to be discovered.

On that day, XY said he intentionally left his cell phone at his mother's home while visiting his grandmother. When the phone dinged, the mother found the phone and saw the messages, according to the testimony.

The mother alerted XY's father, who took possession of the phone in order to show the local Boy Scout Troop. Within a day or two, Sgt. Jessie Delaney of the Boyd County Sheriff's Office was alerted and took possession of the phone.

In the interim, Crace deactivated his Facebook account. According to XY's father, he believed his wife at the time had called Crace to chew him out over it, which inadvertently tipped him off. Crace said he was unaware of the messages and did not use Facebook Messenger or use the text lingo contained in the messages.

His explanation is his son saw he was active at 2 a.m., when he would've been asleep. So he deactivated the account, believing he'd been hacked.

When the phone was finally analyzed, the messages were not found on it. A subpoena of Facebook records returned no information on the account — Delaney said Facebook did not retain records on a deleted account after a certain length of time.

Another account showed a phonebook-sized stack of messages between Crace and ZA, the brother who received hundreds of dollars from trips with Crace, according to the testimony. Each of those messages was deleted, according to Delaney.

Crace said he deletes all messages, whether it's Facebook, email or text. He said working at SOMC, he had to routinely delete electronic correspondences because of medical information — he chalked it up to a force of habit.

On June 1, 2015, Crace's now ex-wife came home to find her husband a nervous wreck, according to her testimony. Always referring to Crace as the "defendant" in her testimony — only saying her ex-husband's name once upon the prodding of the Joy — the ex-wife said she was concerned he was going to harm himself.

Apparently, Crace had some suicidal ideations in the past, according to the ex-wife. So she had him call a crisis line at Pathways. Things had been strained in the home — Crace had quit his job on May 11, 2015, and now the ex-wife was the sole breadwinner of the home.

Just before midnight, the Boyd County deputies responded to the home with a search warrant, seizing cell phones, computers and other electronic devices.

During that search, Crace denied having any sexual contact with the boy.

Why all these years?

At time of Delaney's initial investigation, the long-serving deputy said he thought XY was holding something back. Delaney didn't what it was, but he felt based on the boy's mannerisms he wasn't telling the entire truth.

The boy's father felt like XY was, too — when he brought up sexual abuse, he said his son would "clam up." At the time, the boy denied ever being touched by Crace.

However, in October 2018, the boy — by then 17 years old — told a neighbor he'd been molested by Crace. That information was forwarded to authorities — a forensic interview at Hope's Place revealed he'd been abused one time. Delaney interviewed the teen a few days later — the boy said it happened five to six times, according to the testimony.

XY said he didn't want to think about what had happened to him, but eventually depression and anxiety ate him up to the point he had to say something. According to XY, the experience was traumatic and was something he'd rather not relive.

"Today is the most I've ever talked about it," he said.

When the state rested its case, Joy called in a parade of social workers and mental health professionals who had interacted with XY between the time of the 2015 disclosure and the 2018 disclosure. All mandatory reporters — meaning they'd face legal repercussions if they did not report suspected sexual abuse — only one had mentioned it in her notes, and that was in relation to the case at hand.

The rest said there was other things going on, but sexual abuse was never brought up.

During his testimony, Crace proposed his theory of the case — he believes XY and a parent concocted the allegations as a way to get money out of him, after he couldn't provide any more assistance due to leaving his job.

The trial will resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Boyd County Circuit Court. Testimony will begin with the cross examination of Crace by Merkle, then one rebuttal witness is expected to be called by the state. After that, closing arguments will ensue and the jury will have the case to decide.

(606) 326-2653 — henry@dailyindependent.com

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