Traverse City: Bishop sentenced to jail time

He gets 28 days in jail for sexual conduct

TRAVERSE CITY – An Eastern Orthodox bishop who begged not to be incarcerated for groping a woman’s breast at a casino last year was ordered to spend 28 days in jail.

Bishop Demetri Khoury, 55, implored 13th Circuit Judge Philip Rodgers Jr. to sentence him to community service Friday for attempted fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Jail “would be like a death sentence to my career and thus to my very life,” Khoury said in heavily-accented English.

Rodgers said Khoury could perform community service while he is in jail and offer spiritual guidance to others there.

Khoury, of Toledo, led churches in the Midwest for the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America until he was arrested at the Turtle Creek Casino in July,
charged with being drunk and grabbing a woman at a slot machine.

Chief Assistant Prosecutor Alan Schneider argued that even though Khoury has no criminal record and has led an accomplished life, he should be treated like anyone else
convicted of sexual assault.

“We respond to that by incarceration, period,” Schneider said. “I believe that’s how we have to respond to him.”

Rodgers said he hoped church leaders would consider factors other than Khoury’s sentence when they consider Khoury’s future with the church, and he noted that he had received volumes of letters and petitions in support of Khoury.

He also said he didn’t understand why Khoury’s friends who were accompanying him on a church outing to the Upper Peninsula when he was arrested would let him get drunk
and go gambling.

“I never understood when this case first arose why you were in a casino,” Rodgers said.

In a prepared statement that took a half-hour to read, Khoury described his life, the day of the incident in great detail – he had poached eggs and tomato juice for breakfast – and he apologized to the victim.

“I do not make excuses, yet I do seek mercy and forgiveness,” Khoury said. “I stand before you today as a broken man, one who has fallen from grace through self-inflicted wounds.”