Abuse of Authority
by Timothy Rollins

Lord Acton put it rightly when he said, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Take for example, 42-year-old Gerald "Ajax" Ackerman, who is the mayor of Port Huron, Michigan. Port Huron is a town of 37,000 situated at the Canadian border, and about an hour from Detroit. Many people in the town looked up to "Ajax" because he used his addiction to drugs and alcohol to help young people turn their lives around.

Ackerman has now been charged with taking pornographic photos of young girls among other things, which, if convicted on 14 counts of sexual misconduct involving children, could lead him to a life sentence in prison. One of the alleged victims was as young as nine years old and police reportedly have the photos. When will it ever end?

What is alleged to have happened in Port Huron is by no means isolated. If anything, it sadly seems to be becoming the norm and not the exception. Last year, Reverend Jerry Power was convicted in Dallas of having sex with underage girls at his church-operated school in Irving, Texas and received an all-expense paid trip for 12 years to the Texas State Prison. There he joined another sexual predator, a former priest named Xavier Ortiz-Dietz, who is doing a 20 year stretch at the same facility – the difference being that Power preferred girls, while Dietz preferred boys. That case had the Diocese of San Antonio making a seven-figure apology. I don’t know about you, but I can think of nobler purposes for church funds than damage control.

In my own community, we have a man who was arrested last week in a sting operation when he was online trying to set up sex with some underage girls through what the perp thought was the girls’ father. The "Dad" was actually an undercover cop. While increased attention to these deviants is good in that makes all parents and others more cautious, it also leaves us wondering who we can trust anymore if anyone at all?

I have a woman in my own congregation who voiced these concerns to me in light of a number of incidents she and I have been aware of over the years. It does not help the situation that over 90 percent of the perps of sex abuse of children are males and the overwhelming majority of them are white. In going through the Virginia Sex Offense Registry some time back, I noticed that the majority of white men listed are convicted child molesters and the majority of non-white men listed are convicted rapists. I ask myself why that is.

People placed in positions of trust, whether they be elected officials, ministers, teachers, parents or even child care workers, need to remind themselves that they are servants of those who conferred that trust upon them. It is not a license to fulfill their lusts or passions in ways that are inappropriate or even worse, unlawful.

I am of the belief that convictions of this nature should have maximum sentences with no possibility of early parole as an enhancer penalty. This would remind those in whom a trust is placed, that they are indeed the servant and not the Master.

Such an attitude is long overdue in the judicial system. ***

© 1999 Timothy Rollins and RIGHT Magazine

EDITOR'S UPDATE: Ackerman was subsequently convicted on 10 felony counts of criminal sexual conduct and received a sentence of up to 38 years in state prison.