Priest's sex trafficking trial starts Tuesday

Jury selection in the trial of a former St. Michael the Archangel pastor, charged with sex trafficking of children and adults, begins Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Toledo. Michael J. Zacharias, 56, faces two charges that he used force, fraud and coercion to get a minor to engage in paid sex acts; and three charges that he used force, fraud and coercion to get an adult to engage in paid sex acts. Zacharias, who was pastor at St. Michael's from 2017 to 2020, is alleged to have victimized minors whom he first met while they were students at a Toledo Catholic school where he was previously employed. It is alleged in court documents that there were three male victims and that Zacharias preyed upon their need for money for their drug addictions. Zacharias denies ever having engaged in any sexual conduct with anyone under 18 years of age. He says that all sexual conduct in which he participated was not the result of force, fraud or coercion. One person was allegedly sex trafficked as a minor from July 2005 to July 2006, and then as an adult from July 2006 to August 2020. A second person was allegedly sex trafficked as a minor from May 2010 to June 2012, and then as an adult from June 2012 to December 2013. A third was allegedly sex trafficked as an adult from September 2008 to August 2020. Conviction of sex trafficking of a minor or sex trafficking of an adult by force, fraud or coercion carry a penalty of up to 25 years in prison. Ordained as a priest in 2002, Zacharias served at St. Peter's Catholic Church, in Mansfield, from July 2002 to June 2007. From July 2005 to July 2006, Zacharias is alleged to have gotten a boy, then 17 years old, to engage in paid sex acts. That boy first met Zacharias when he was in sixth grade at St. Catherine's Catholic School in Toledo, where Zacharias was assigned to spend his fourth year of seminary formation. Zacharias is also charged with using force, fraud and coercion to get that same male, as an adult, to engage in paid sex acts from July 2006 to August 2020. The male told the FBI that he had been to Zacharias' residence/rectory, at 2008 Greendale Ave., in Findlay, on about six or seven occasions from August 2019 to August 2020 for paid sex. "Victim #1 advised that Zacharias lived there with another individual but always ensured that this individual was gone before Victim #1 came over," an FBI special agent said in a sworn statement in 2020. In July 2007, Zacharias was transferred from St. Peter's in Mansfield to St. Mary's in Van Wert. He remained there until June 2011. Then he was transferred to St. Joseph's Catholic Church, in Fremont, where he served until being transferred to St. Michael's, in Findlay, in July 2017. From May 2010 to June 1, 2012, Zacharias is alleged to have used force, fraud or coercion to cause another boy to engage in paid sex acts. It is also alleged that Zacharias used force, fraud or coercion to cause that same individual, as an adult, to engage in paid sex acts from June 2012 to Dec. 31, 2013. An additional victim was in first grade at St. Catherine's Catholic School when he met Zacharias. Zacharias is charged with using force, fraud or coercion to cause him to engage in paid sex acts from September 2008 to August 2020 when that individual was an adult. Zacharias was arrested and taken into federal custody in August 2020 by the Northwest Ohio Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.