by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
A Sartell man accused of sexually abusing an altar boy in church was sentenced recently in Stearns County District Court to five years in prison.
Douglas Gerard Kleinsmith, 56, pleaded guilty in a previous court appearance to two counts of criminal sexual conduct.
According to the complaint against him, Kleinsmith had volunteered to help train altar boys at St. John Cantius Church in St. Cloud. There, he met the 15-year-old altar boy he was charged with sexually abusing. The complaint alleged Kleinsmith abused the boy once in the church and several times at places outside the church, including at least once in Albany.
Kleinsmith belonged to a Latin Mass group that likes to hear the Catholic Mass spoken in the original Latin rather than modern English. That group rented the church space, but it was not an activity of the church parish.
Kleinsmith has a previous conviction for sexually abusing a child in Idaho for which he was convicted in 1991.
Douglas Gerard Kleinsmith