SANTA FE, N.M. (Reuter) - A 50-year-old New Mexico teacher
who allegedly had an affair with a 14-year-old student, told a
judge he was repaying the girl for saving his life when he was a
7th century Buddhist monk.
Roger Katz, a former Santa Fe junior high school teacher,
told district judge Steve Herrera on Friday that he knew the
student in 640 A.D. when he was a teenage monk in Tibet and she
was a mature woman.
Katz said the woman saved his life by taking an arrow in the
chest fired at him by a horseman from a rival religion.
Katz said in a seven-page letter to the judge in his defense
that he knew he had to repay the ``debt of love and devotion.''
Psychologist Susan Cave, who examined Katz, said he was not
delusional and that ``many people in this town hold these
beliefs'' about reincarnation.
Santa Fe has become a Mecca for New Age spiritual devotees.
According to court documents, a Santa Fe County Sheriff's
deputy on patrol in a remote area in February 1996 found Katz
and the girl in the back of Katz's van.
The girl was naked and inside a sleeping bag. Charges of
criminal sexual penetration were first laid against Katz but
were dropped when no evidence could be found he had sex with the
girl.
Herrera, unswayed by the bizarre explanation, sentenced Katz
to 18 months in prison, the maximum sentence for the
fourth-degree felony charge of contributing to the delinquency
of a minor.
``I had to give him the prison time, how do we know he won't
decide he knew someone else's 14-year-old daughter in another
lifetime and decide he might want to have sex with her too?''
Herrera said after the case. ``A wolf in sheep's clothing is
still a wolf.''
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