Youth Minister's Confession To Pastor Protected By Cleric-Penitent Privilege

According to today's Trenton (NJ) Record, a state Superior Court judge in Patterson (NJ) has barred prosecutors from using as evidence in an upcoming sexual assault trial a confession given by a church youth minister to the church's pastor. Pastor Milton Mendez arranged a meeting with youth minister Emerzon Gomez after learning that a 14-year old girl had said she had oral sex with Gomez while Gomez was giving her a piano lesson in her home. Prosecutors argued that Mendez, pastor of a charismatic Catholic congregation, was acting as an investigator, not as a spiritual advisor, when he got Gomez to confess to him. The court, however, decided that the confession is protected by the state's cleric-penitent privilege-- something that Pastor Mendez did not know when police questioned him about his conversation with the accused youth minister.