EX-PASTOR APPEALS SODOMY CONVICTION

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- A former Dunklin County pastor sentenced to 25 years in prison for forcible sodomy appeared before state Appeals Court judges Wednesday seeking an acquittal.

James Niederstadt had admitted to sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl several times in 1992 during his trial last year, but attorney Daniel Moore said the incidents were not forcible sodomy because they took place while the victim was asleep.

"It's a very narrow legal issue," Moore said.

The girl began to live with Niederstadt and his family in 1991, after her parents left her in his care while they returned to serve as missionaries in West Africa.

The girl told authorities that Niederstadt had fondled her above and under her clothing numerous times between June 1991 and 1993, when she left to attend college. She also said she had been beaten with a belt so hard that the bruises kept her from participating in physical education classes at school.

Attorney Keith Sorrell told the three-judge panel for the Southern District Appeals Court that during the weeks of March 1992, when Niederstadt said he had fondled and sodomized the girl, no force had been used.

"The facts are that the girl was asleep," said Moore, who represents Niederstadt along with Sorrell. "So there's no evidence of forcible compulsion as defined by the statute."

Forcible compulsion involves either physical force that overcomes reasonable resistance or a threat that gives a "reasonable fear" of serious injury.

In a brief filed with the Appeals Court by the Missouri attorney general's office, two attempts by the girl to run away from Niederstadt's home are mentioned.

The girl had said she tried sleeping in various parts of the house to escape Niederstadt's fondling, but he always found her.

On one occasion, she said he grabbed her by the throat, choked her and said he wanted to kill her.

The girl was trapped by her circumstances, said Lisa Sutherland, assistant attorney general.

"She tried to contact a teacher about (his) whippings but was only asked Don't you think you deserved it then?'" Sutherland stated in the brief to the court.

The Appeals Court should reach a decision within 45 days or less, Moore said.