Admitted pedophile tells jurors relations with boys were about 'love.'
May 10, 2001
By GREG HARDESTY
The Orange County Register
The tall man in the dark-blue suit made his opening statement to jurors Wednesday.
I'm a pedophile, he admitted.
"I'm not going to stand here and say these acts didn't occur -- because they did," said a well-groomed and articulate Kenneth Teague, representing himself in a lurid sex-abuse trial in Santa Ana.
Jurors will see videos of Teague engaging in sexual acts with boys as young as 9.
But there's another side to the story, Teague told the panel of nine women and three men.
It has to do with "courage and kindness and trust and love," said Teague, a former home-based computer consultant in Irvine.
Hardly, said Deputy District Attorney Randy Payne, who painted Teague as a manipulative opportunist who abused his positions in the Boy Scouts, Big Brothers and foster-parent programs to seduce vulnerable boys.
"He gained their trust so he could have access to their (bodies)," Payne said.
Teague, 43, faces 17 counts of engaging in lewd and lascivious behavior with three minors, but his victims may number as many as 15, according to investigators. Several will take the stand before Judge Frank F. Fasel.
The alleged abuse occurred from the late 1980s through August 1998, when Teague was arrested, authorities said.
Look past the ghastly images, Teague urged jurors. See that my intent wasn't criminal, he said.
To illustrate his point, Teague showed jurors a picture book called "Show Me!" that featured pictures of nude children. The book was used for sex education in the 1970s, Teague said.
"You cannot call (the publishers) predators or molesters," he said.
Later, he said: "This is not a case of sex acts, folks. This is a case of human feelings."