A Waterford Township Catholic priest accused of raping a young boy was bound over to Wayne County Circuit Court on Thursday on a charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct - sexual penetration with a person less than 13 years old.

At a preliminary exam in a Wayne County district court, visiting Judge Randy Kalmbach advanced the case against Father Joseph “Jack” Baker to the higher court on Thursday after hearing testimony from the alleged victim, now age 23, who said Baker sexually assaulted him in a storage room of St. Mary Catholic Church in Wayne in 2004.

Baker, 57, is currently suspended from his duties as pastor of St. Perpetua Parish in Waterford and all public ministry, as ordered by the Archdiocese of Detroit.

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The Oakland Press is not identifying the victim of the alleged rape due to the nature of the offense.

Taking the stand in 18th District Court in Westland, the alleged victim testified that the incident unfolded sometime between February 2004 and June 2004 when he was a second-grader at St. Mary. While attending an after-school catechism class there in preparation for the sacrament of First Holy Communion, he said, a teacher asked him to retrieve a book from the church’s storage room or sacristy, which is where he encountered Baker that day.

Baker told him to deliver the book and then return because he needed his help, he said. When he came back to the sacristy, Baker sat him down and started talking, and then the abuse began, he said.

“During that time, he put his hand down my pants and started to touch my genitalia,” he said. Soon after, he said, Baker put him over a table and raped him.

“I just remember looking at a crucifix across the table, wondering what was happening. I didn’t understand,” he said.

When the sex act ended, Baker told him not to tell anyone what happened because it was wrong and a sin, he said.

“I went back (to the catechism class) and tried to hide, hide inside myself,” he said.

He also said that when he got home that day, he saw blood in his underpants so he threw them away.

He first disclosed the alleged rape to his girlfriend last October, and then his father, he said. He was subsequently interviewed by Special Agent David Dwyre, who’s involved in investigating allegations of clergy abuse for the Michigan Attorney General’s office.

Dwyre also took the stand Thursday, explaining that the office received notification from the Archdiocese of Detroit about the allegation and criminal misconduct against Baker.

'He might not come back'

Supporters of Baker filled the courtroom during the preliminary exam, and some shook their heads as Kalmbuch recapped the testimony before ruling that enough evidence exists to move the case forward.

Kalmbuch declined to give Baker permission to travel out of state for a planned vacation, as requested by his attorneys Patrick Bagley and James O’Donnell, advising them to bring it up at Baker’s arraignment in Wayne County Circuit Court on Sept. 12. In July, 18th District Judge Sandra Cicirelli allowed Baker to keep his planned trip to Phoenix in early August, despite an objection by Assistant Attorney General Alison Furtaw, who is prosecuting the case. On Thursday, Furtaw told Kalmbuch that she again objects to Baker leaving the state and there is “obviously some concern that he might not come back.”

Baker is wearing an electronic tether and has a $500,000 personal bond, which doesn’t require bail to be posted.

Outside of court, O’Donnell said cases like the one against Baker, where more than a dozen years pass between the alleged crime and the reporting of it, pose significant issues related to “memory and motive.”

Several of Baker’s supporters were approached for comment after the preliminary exam but declined.

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