by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
A Sartell man who pleaded guilty to sexually molesting an altar boy in a St. Cloud church could be sentenced for up to seven years in prison.
Douglas Gerard Kleinsmith, 55, pleaded guilty last week to two counts of criminal sexual conduct just before his trial was to begin. After his plea of guilty, he will be sentenced this June.
According to the charges against him, Kleinsmith was a member of a Latin Mass group at St. John Cantius Church in north St. Cloud when he volunteered to help train in altar boys. It was one of the altar boys he sexually abused, allegedly four times, during a two-year period, according to the boy who revealed the abuse to law enforcement when he was 18.
The boy was 15 when he met Kleinsmith in 2013, and the abuse began when the boy was 16 – once inside the church and three other times when he and the boy were elsewhere, according to the complaint. Those incidents occurred between March 2013 and March 2015. Kleinsmith was charged with the offenses in November 2015.
Douglas Gerard Kleinsmith
