Ex-teacher denies sex allegations

WEST CHESTER >> Randy Lee Boston, the former teacher at a West Goshen religious school on trial for molesting a first-grade student there more than a decade ago, denied repeatedly in testimony Wednesday all of the accusations against him.

“Did you ever have sex, oral or otherwise, with (the young boy)?” defense attorney Evan Kelly asked Boston during his direct examination of the former teacher. “No,” he answered.

“Were you sexually attracted (to him?)” Kelly pressed. “No,” again Boston answered. “Did you ever have sex (with him)?” the attorney asked once more at the end of his 10 minutes of questioning. “No,” came the answer. He also denied being sexually attracted to young boys, as he had told police in an interview prior to his arrest.

But on cross-examination, Boston struggled to explain why he had said he had such feelings, or why the young man who made the accusations that the former teacher, now a Baptist pastor, had forced him to have oral sex during a disciplining session at West Chester Christian School would have said so unless he was telling the truth.

“It’s your testimony that he is the one lying?” asked Assistant District Attorney Christine Abatemarco at the end of her questioning. “As you sit here today your testimony is that (he) had to have made this up. Is that correct?”

“Or been mistaken,” answered Boston. “He’s a very confused young man.”

The jury of eight men and four women hearing the case in Judge Patrick Carmody’s courtroom were due to receive the case mind-afternoon Wednesday following closing arguments from the two sides.

Boston, 64, of Shickshinny, Luzerne County is charged with involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, indecent assault of a person less than 13, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of children, false imprisonment, and sexual contact with a student.

The prosecution withdrew a count of unlawful restraint Tuesday.

Boston, a husband, and father of four, has been free on bail since his arrest in July 2021. When he was arrested and charged, he was serving as pastor at the Bible Baptist Church in Shickskinny, a small borough of 600 outside Wilkes-Barre. He said on the stand Wednesday that he had been placed on a leave of absence from the church.

The case has drawn a significant amount of attention, with a half dozen of Boston’s family or supporters attending the trial every day, and a similar amount of people who support the alleged victim also sitting in the gallery, including past graduates of the school.

Under Kelly’s questioning, Boston said he had left the school where he had taught since 1979 at the end of the 2007 to 2008 school year, the year that the young man said the incident had occurred. The man’s name is being withheld because of the nature of the charges involved.

He said he did not remember the boy at all, had never had any interactions with him, and had never disciplined him for any reason; the alleged victim said he was pulled from early school assembly by Boston because he had stuck his tongue out at a classmate — something that Boston said had not occurred.

The young man testified he had kept the story of the encounter largely to himself, confiding once in a younger brother who swore not to tell anyone, but eventually went to West Goshen police and reported the matter after disclosing it to his parents.

When West Goshen Detectives William Cuddhy and David Maurer went to Shickskinny to question Boston, he denied ever having had sex with the boy but acknowledged that he had a sexual interest in young boys, and “still struggled with his desire towards them,” according to the criminal complaint and their testimony. He said he was attracted to their bodies, especially their buttocks, and that he had masturbated to thoughts of such children.

When Kelly asked him to explain why he had said that to the investigators, Boston said he felt stressed and “introspective” about his past admiration for and envy of the way young men’s physiques developed. He said he had paid attention to those young boys who had “muscular builds” and athletic bodies. “I was almost envious of them,” he said.

“I said, ‘No this did not happen,’” he said. “But I felt I got stuck there. I shut down. But I was trying to be as truthful as I could. There wasn’t anything sexual about it.”

Under Abatemarco’s cross-examination, Boston agreed that he had told police about his attraction and that he specifically mentioned boys’ buttocks. He also acknowledged saying that he had masturbated to thoughts of such bodies, although he hedged that he might not have understood the question.

“My problem is that I was uncomfortable with the idea that I had masturbated,” he said. “But no matter how deep I dive (into introspective thoughts) I never thought of having sex with them,” he said.

As corroboration of the young man’s story, the prosecution put on testimony from his mother, who said that she had been a student at the school herself and had known Boston and his family for years, having given the children music lessons.

One day in the early summer of 2008, Boston approached her at the school and said that he had prayed with her son and that he had accepted God as his salvation. The moment so impressed her, she said, that she wrote about it in the son’s baby book.

But Boston denied ever having prayed with the boy, or ever having discussed that with his mother, and could not offer any reason the young man would single him out in his accusations.

“Would he have a motive to lie?” Carmody asked from the bench. “No,” Boston said.

Boston