BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON -- The Rev. Darrell S. Bell's wife, Jewel, told a jury Tuesday that a woman who says the Rev. Mr. Bell molested her repeatedly when she was a child is wrong.
Mrs. Bell testified the woman may have been abused by someone else but not her husband.
The Rev. Mr. Bell, 44, an AK Steel employee who has been associate pastor of Bethlehem Temple First Pentecostal Church, faces six counts of rape, three counts of felonious sexual penetration and five counts of sexual battery.
The Middletown man, a clergyman for 25 years, is charged with repeatedly molesting a relative during a seven-year period. The trial is being held in Butler County Common Pleas Court.
The case has fueled strong emotions among the Rev. Mr. Bell's family and throughout the community, said one woman who made the drive from Middletown to watch the trial's second day Tuesday. She declined to give her name.
"I've known Darrell; he's a nice person. And what he's accused of, nobody wants it to be true. But I think everybody wants the truth to come out."
In his testimony, Darrell S. Bell II, 22, corroborated Monday's testimony by his father's accuser that the minister had acknowledged being sexually abused as a child.
Mrs. Bell testified that she doesn't believe the accusations against her husband are true. She also said she told Darrell S. Bell II: "You know this is crazy. You could be the one to put a stop to this. You could make sense out of this."
Another witness Tuesday said that she had not been abused as the Rev. Mr. Bell's accuser had said Monday.
Judge H.J. Bressler told the jury that he expects testimony to end today or Thursday.
