CLEVELAND -- It was probably not a defense the court had heard before.
A suburban Cleveland man accused of sexually assaulting nine disabled boys told a judge Wednesday that his apartment was a religious sanctuary where smoking marijuana and having sex with children are sacred rituals protected by civil rights laws.
The admitted pedophile offered a surprising defense Wednesday to 74 charges of rape, drugs and pandering obscenity to minors.
Appearing in an Ohio court for a pretrial hearing, Phillip Distasio, 34, of Rocky River, Ohio, said he was a pedophile.
He told the judge, "I'm a pedophile. I've been a pedophile for 20 years. 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, a self-professed pagan friar, is representing himself on 74 charges. He said he's the leader of a church called Arcadian Fields Ministries, and that some of his congregants are among the victims in his case.
The judge told Distasio to confine his arguments to secular laws at his trial, scheduled to begin Sept. 11.
"If you want to challenge the law, that's your right to do so," Judge Kathleen Sutula said. "But we're going to follow the laws of Ohio in this courtroom."
Cuyahoga County Bill Mason said Distasio was arrested after he wanted to write a blog for the Lakewood Library. Officials noticed something was wrong and notified Rocky River police.
Distasio was arrested on charges he molested two disabled boys he was tutoring at his home. He's also accused of raping seven other autistic children at a Cleveland school for special-needs students, The Plain Dealer reported. All but one of the boys was under 13, which carries a mandatory life-in-prison sentence if he is convicted, the paper reported.
Police said they found journals at Distasio's apartment in which he described his illegal activities, along with child pornography and videotapes of him engaged in sex with boys, The Plain Dealer reported
"Not all pedophilia is bad, and sex [with boys] can be healthy," Distasio told the court.
According to the journals, two of Distasio's victims were so helpless they could never tell anyone what happened.
"The defendant describes acts in which he had autistic children and he did what I would call sadistic sexual acts with these children," said Mason.
The school he ran from his apartment was called Class Cutters. According to Distasio's Web site, students and parents chose the curriculum in the school for unique children.
But prosecutors said it was little more than a trap that snared one victim and then another.
"Like all predators, he used this one child to bring other children to him and that's what was happening, and that's how he got his second victim," said Mason.
And prosecutors believe there may be more victims.
Distasio has a history of working with children dating back 10 years.
Prosecutors said he could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
