BALTIMORE, Feb. 11 -- Dontee Stokes's emotional testimony at his trial on an attempted-murder charge in 2002 helped lead to his acquittal in the shooting of Maurice J. Blackwell, a former Roman Catholic priest who allegedly had molested Stokes when he was a child. Stokes, now 29, told jurors that he had "an out-of-body experience" when he confronted Blackwell on a city street and put three bullets in him.
The jury sympathized with his emotional distress.
On Friday, Stokes faced the defrocked pastor again in court, this time with Blackwell, 58, in the defendant's chair, charged in the sexual abuse that Stokes alleges was inflicted on him by Blackwell from 1989 to 1992. And just as Stokes's psychological state was a key issue before the jury two years ago, so it is now, as Blackwell's attorney tries to portray Stokes as someone who at times has trouble differentiating fact from fantasy.
The defense attorney, Kenneth W. Ravenell, mocked Stokes's assertion of an out-of-body experience. In his opening statement, Ravenell told jurors that Stokes has struggled with his sexuality and that he lied about being molested by Blackwell.
"He has this belief that if he is homosexual, it can only be if he was molested," Ravenell said. "He is afraid to admit he may be homosexual because he may be ostracized."
Stokes, a west Baltimore barber, testified for more than four hours, denying that he is homosexual and asserting that he was molested by Blackwell beginning when he was 13. He said Blackwell gradually turned fatherly hugs into sexual groping. He said the clergyman raped him once, when he was in 11th grade.
"I know what he did," Stokes said. "There's nothing fantasy or delusional about it."
He spoke in detail about the day he said Blackwell raped him. From the witness stand, he looked directly at Blackwell and described how the alleged assault took place in the rectory of St. Edward Roman Catholic Church in west Baltimore.
"He forced me to touch him," Stokes said of Blackwell, who is charged with four counts of sexual child abuse, each punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Prosecutor Jo Anne Stanton told the jury during opening statements that Stokes was "morally and legally violated" by Blackwell, who baptized Stokes as a baby and was somewhat of a father figure to him.
But Ravenell brought up psychological examinations of Stokes dating to 1993. He said records show that Stokes spoke of having dreams of being abducted by aliens, of believing at one time that he was Jesus Christ reincarnated and at another time that he had accepted a dead friend's spirit into his body so that the dead friend could have sex with a woman.
Stokes denied some of the assertions, saying he is a "god seeker" and a student of several religions. Although he said he is not homosexual, he acknowledged engaging in sexual activity with another boy when he was a young child.
Asked by Ravenell whether he sometimes has trouble telling reality from fiction, Stokes replied, "In some ways, that is correct."
Stokes alleged in 1993 that Blackwell molested him, but Baltimore police and prosecutors said at the time that they did not have enough evidence to charge Blackwell. Baltimore's archbishop, Cardinal William H. Keeler, removed Blackwell from St. Edward for 90 days and sent him for a mental evaluation. Keeler eventually reinstated him.
Five years later, Blackwell was removed from the congregation and suspended from the priesthood after he admitted sexually abusing a teenager in the 1970s, the Baltimore Archdiocese said.
In 2002, after Stokes shot Blackwell, Stokes changed his account and said that Blackwell had gone beyond molesting him and had raped him. In 2003, prosecutors reopened the case and brought the matter before a grand jury, which indicted Blackwell.
