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Man found guilty of sexually assaulting teenage girls he targeted through shared Catholic faith

Prosecutors say the abuse lasted several years
Posted at 1:03 PM, Aug 06, 2019
and last updated 2019-08-06 15:03:04-04

DENVER — A 57-year-old man who was accused of sexually assaulting three teenage girls over the course of several years was found guilty on Friday.

A jury found Bradley J. Marcotte guilty of two counts of sexual assault on a child in a pattern of abuse and nine counts of sexual assault on a child by somebody in a position of trust, all of which are felonies.

According to an arrest affidavit, detectives with the Denver Police Department met with three victims who all described how Marcotte had sexually assaulted them when they were teenagers. Carolyn A. Tyler with the Denver District Attorney's Office said the assaults occurred between March 2008 and August 2015.

The first victim police talked with said she met Marcotte when she was 14 or 15 years old. He was a friend of the mother of a boy she had been dating. Marcotte and the girl were both Catholic and she soon considered him to be a spiritual advisor and friend. They had met privately to talk about different things, including problems in her family, according to the affidavit.

During these talks, Marcotte started to give the victim long hugs and when she’d pull away from him, “he would convince her to trust him,” according to the document. In one instance, he had her sit on his lap at a playground and said “this was true love” and “she needed to trust him because he was there for her.”

They met four to five times a week.

During her sophomore year in high school, he’d take her to the Southmoor light rail station, where their relationship became sexual, according to the affidavit. She told police when she’d tell him to stop kissing her, “he would ‘shhh’ her.”

This continued into her junior year of high school. At this time, Marcotte said they could not have sex but he told her “he would have dreams of them having sex in Heaven and prays that Heaven would allow them to be together intimately,” according to the affidavit. The victim told police she felt she was truly in love with him and wanted to have a future together. Still, after they met, she felt “ashamed” afterward, police said. At one point during her junior or senior year, he penetrated her, according to the affidavit.

When she was a senior in high school, she would “periodically tell Brad that she wanted to stop and did not want to do this anymore,” but she told police he would talk her out of it.

Denver detectives met with a second victim afterward, who said she met Marcotte when she was 15 years old. She said her mother was skeptical at first because he was an older man.

She met with him in groups and one-on-one, and they always met at a public place, she told police. He would sometimes drive her around in his car and would comment about how pretty she was, she said. She said he would make “sexual comments about things he’s done with other people and that he would like to do those things with her,” according to the affidavit.

When she was 16 years old, their relationship progressed to a point where he had his hands on her bare buttocks and kissed her on the mouth.

The third victim reached out to Denver police after she learned from one of the other victims that she had had a sexual relationship with Marcotte. The third victim said she was shocked because she had also had a sexual relationship with him.

She had met Marcotte when she was in 6th or 7th grade as part of a group for guidance and counseling. She told police she thought of him as a spiritual mentor and said many kids, at his request, called him Father Brad, even though he was not a member of the clergy, according to the affidavit.

The victim said she started meeting with him alone. When she was in the 7th grade, he baptized her in the back of his car.

When she was 16 years old, he exposed himself to her while explaining male anatomy. He sexually assaulted her at least a couple times when she was 17 years old, according to the affidavit.

Prosecutors in this case said Marcotte made a point to target teenagers with troubled lives and would isolate them and normalize his sexual behavior. He’d also use their shared Catholic faith as a catalyst for the abuse, they said.

The Denver District Attorney’s Office said Marcotte was intentional and manipulative in his actions.

He will be sentenced on Nov. 22 and could face between eight years and life in prison.