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And it oughta be a death penalty offense

A man accused of sexually assaulting nine boys with physical or mental disabilities told a judge that having sex with children is a sacred ritual protected by civil rights laws.

Phillip Distasio, who said he is the leader of a church called Arcadian Fields Ministries, represented himself at his pretrial hearing Wednesday. He is charged with 74 counts including rape, pandering obscenity to minors and corrupting another with drugs.

Distasio, 34, told a Cuyahoga County judge that his Rocky River apartment was a religious sanctuary where engaging in sex with boys and smoking marijuana were considered sacred rituals and are protected under civil rights laws.

"I'm a pedophile. I've been a pedophile for 20 years," he said in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Wednesday. "The only reason I'm charged with rape is that no one believes a child can consent to sex. The role of my ministry is to get these cases out of the courtrooms."

Distasio [is] a self-appointed friar who compares himself to St. Francis and St. Ignatius.

Police arrested Distasio in September on charges he molested two disabled boys he was tutoring at his home and of raping seven other autistic children at a Cleveland school for special-needs students. All but one of the boys was under 13, which carries a mandatory life-in-prison sentence if he is convicted.

Police found journals at Distasio's Wooster Road apartment in which he described his activities, plus child pornography and videotapes of him engaged in sex with boys. "The defendant describes acts in which he had autistic children and he did what I would call sadistic sexual acts with these children."

Distasio tried unsuccessfully in June to fire his court-appointed lawyer, Thomas Shaughnessy, who refused to go along with his religious-freedom defense.

"Not all pedophilia is bad, and sex [with boys] can be healthy," Distasio said. "It's an argument that I'm willing to make, but my attorney is not."