Attack on family at priest’s trial was unnecessary

ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Bill McClellan
Post-Dispatch
08/30/2003

Father Kenneth Robert Smoot did not seem eager to testify against a friend and fellow priest, but he was resolute about it. He came across — at least to me — as a fellow who had decided to do the right thing. The right thing is not always the easy thing or the popular thing, but there is a certain strength, a certain moral clarity, that attaches itself to the man or woman who chooses it.

Smoot and Bryan Kuchar were friends from their days in the seminary. They had vacationed together. In April of last year, when Kuchar learned that he was under investigation, he called Smoot. They had dinner together the night before Kuchar was arrested. So their friendship was not of the casual sort. They were close.

When Kuchar was arrested, he confessed. Later, he recanted, and claimed the police had coerced him. He went to trial in May, and the jury could not reach a verdict.

Smoot spoke with the authorities. He said that he had talked with Kuchar two weeks after his arrest. Smoot said he had asked Kuchar if the accusations were true. He said they were, Smoot said.

So it was that at Kuchar’s second trial, Smoot became a witness against his friend. He wore his clerical clothes to court. Kuchar sat at the defense table in his priestly garb. Smoot looked toward him. Kuchar seemed to look away. Under questioning by prosecutor Rob Livergood, Smoot told his story.