GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WZZM) -- Former pastor Jeremy Grinnell, 41, says climbing a ladder to look into the bedroom where his assistant and her boyfriend were having sex was a mistake.
"I've submitted my statement to the court and I submit myself to the court's judgement," Grinnell said in court.
Grinnell says he didn't set out to sin when he went to the 40-year-old woman's home last November. His Bella Vista Church was trying to help the woman avoid foreclosure on her house, he said. The congregation arranged financing, and that night he stopped to say a prayer on the property.
"Myself and the elders, we would do on-site prayer walks on her property. That's why I was on the property," he says. There was a "stepladder leaning against the house, and I broke the law, and it was a mistake, and it was wrong."
Kyle Baker is now the woman's fiance and was her boyfriend at the time of the incident. They were in bed when Baker says he say Grinnell peeping through the window.
"His description of how things went down was completely inaccurate. Not true," Baker says of Grinnell's statement. Baker also said the incident didn't have a hug effect on him, but the woman "still, even to this day, has to lock all of her doors."
Baker says Grinnell wrote a five-part love letter to his assistant, saying he would leave his wife for her, "and she told him multiple times, 'You've got this awesome opportunity. You are throwing this all away. What are you doing?' and he would just not let up."
Baker simply says he believes Grinnell's a stalker who was caught.
Grinnell pleaded guilty to surveilling an unclothed person and is to spend the next five years on probation.
