Arcadian Fields Forever

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see


This isn't what I'm still hoping to post later, but I thought this headline today deserved its own thread:

Man Says Sex With Kids a Sacred Ritual

CLEVELAND -- A man accused of sexually assaulting nine boys with physical or mental disabilities told a judge that having sex with children is a sacred ritual protected by civil rights laws.

Phillip Distasio, who said he is the leader of a church called Arcadian Fields Ministries, represented himself at his pretrial hearing Wednesday. He is charged with 74 counts including rape, pandering obscenity to minors and corrupting another with drugs.

"I'm a pedophile. I've been a pedophile for 20 years," he said in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Wednesday. "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 said some of his congregants are among the victims in this case. Distacio, of Rocky River, is accused of molesting two disabled boys he tutored at his home and raping seven autistic boys at a Cleveland school for special-needs students where he was a teacher's aide. All but one of the victims were under 13.

Distasio's Arcadian Fields website can be found here (though probably not for long), where he goes by the name of "Brother Pateticus," who "has taken it upon himself to revive the concept of making house calls in order to distribute sacrament to the needy and housebound."

An apparent email from "Pateticus" to Nambla members is more forthcoming about his church's true sacrament:

According to all outward appearances, the sanctuary will not be for boylovers. Anyone coming into this arrangement is going to have to put on a performance from time to time so that we can continue to deter the public eye from our true objectives. This is going to require a significant amount of creativity and intelligence from those who come to me for assistance.

I have gone to great lengths to construct a very elaborate rouse [sic] among which your members will be allowed to hide--so long as they are careful. If we pull this off properly, Nambla will appear to be one of many anonymous donors that are already lined up to contribute to the more publicly acceptable causes that this ministry is set up to support. Among the political chaos that we generate, your members will be allowed to disappear, co-exist or even re-locate.

On a Yahoo group he began called "Class Cutters," the home page of which is illustrated by a photograph of disabled children making faces through the emergency door of a school bus, he posted on March 19 last year: "We need to be careful... We can't be using anyone's real name in any text files or emails that might be accessible to the public--especially in the yahoo group... Class Cutters is a group parenting initiative, this means that every parent signing up will have a curriculum that is catered towards the unique needs of their child(ren)."

By the way, what was the last anyone's heard from Ponchatoula?